I think the new iphone 3GS will finally be a refined device, but will it be open device? Or everything through the apple gates? I don’t know. I prefer freedom with Nokia.

Having researched ALL of the carriers, and nearly all of the Manufacturers, I’m STILL not happy with any of the offerings, from either the carriers or the manufacturers themselves. The carriers will not, for whatever reason, carry a full featured touch screen smartphone (gps, wifi, FULL touch screen, office doc EDITING capability, A2DP bluetooth, etc..) There always seems to be something missing.

At the other side of the coin, I find the phones I want on a manufacturers or aftermarket suppliers page. Phones like HTC’s Touch HD, Samsungs Omnia HD, Nokias N97.. one little problem though, they don’t support USA 3G frequencies. I have probably read a thousand webpages about consumer complaints on the carriers. Limited or no 3G coverage, ATT’s current band switching stunt (swapping 3G to 850 and Edge to 1900, and then throttling the available bandwidth on the Edge networks to provide more bandwidth to their limited area 3G network customers). We all know VZW has a good network, even here in Southern AZ, which has NO 3G and crappy edge connections, VZW works. No CDMA (un-neutered) phones available though. And, the cost for all of those VZW services! The answer?

Manufacturers should do more research on the US market. Bulletin boards like this are their answer. In addition to consumer research, the manufacturers need to stop buckling to the US carriers. Make your phone transceivers TRULY USA capable. Stop leaving out the 850 and 1700 band functionality. A consumer is willing to pay for your unlocked phone, why not let them buy something useful! So what if the carriers won’t carry it! So what if the carriers scream and cry about customers using unlocked phones! End users are limited to the carriers plans.. they are the only game in town, for the plans only.. not the phones used on those plans!

If HTC had made the Touch HD in a US capable version, their sales would have skyrocketed over what they did sell with no USA 3G functionality. The same with Samsungs Omnia, and shortly, the Omnia HD. People buy these phones because they are sick of Apple and ATT’s facist practices, and VZW’s practice of neutering the equipment that is availble through them! The BlackBerry Storm for example.. Are you kidding me? No WiFi even built into the platform, per VZW’s build specs! Nokia has a winner with the N97, if they provide FULL functionality, including the capability to operate on ATT AND TMo frequencies. Consumers will also win, if the manufacturers began building their phones this way, as the consumer now can use a month to month plan with no committment, retaining the ability to switch to the carrier with better service. This would prompt the carriers to better their networks, instead of relying on contracts to force customer retention. Food for thought..

I personally think the other reason is that with GSM take-up being fairly slow and thus limited, the appeal of a “smartphone” will be lessened from both the end-user and provider’s POV. GSM smartphones will end up being on EDGE most of the time outside of major cities …which is a vast amount of the US. The providers would have to build up their networks (costly) along with the usual partial subsidies of the smartphones, only to hear from the end-users that as soon as they go home to suburbia hell that they’ve dropped from 3G to EDGE and “you guys said that…”.

Mobile phone use, in general, is lower in the US because you’re paying for both incoming and outgoing calls and tend to go “roaming” after a fairly insignificant amount of travel. Here in Europe (a geographical location, not a country as the author mistakenly referred to) we pay for outgoing calls only and only roam once we leave our home country.

I will concede one point, however: phones are often seen as status items, though it isn’t clear to me that much distinction is made between the various non-smartphone models. Smartphones obviously appear higher-end and thus are cooed over but I don’t think many people actually care much who made it. People here in Poland tend to be firmly in one of two camps: “I don’t care who makes it as long as it is free” or “I will only buy Nokia.” Literally. There is no “I will only buy [LG/Samsung/Sony/HTC]“.

The solution to all of this is to cough up the $300 or whatever (which isn’t THAT much) and thank the gods that at least AT&T and T-Mobile support GSM. The phone companies won’t drop CDMA until something better is demanded and nothing grabs attention quite like lost sales. Your money where your mouth is, that sort of thing.

To answer the question “What do you think Nokia can do to sell more phones in the U.S.?” In my opinion Nokia needs to fully develop their Ovi site for the U.S. as they have in other parts of the world. Once they have that set in place and a revenue stream has been established they need to approach the North American network providers with a revenue sharing plan for Nokia phones on those networks. This would be very similar to the Apple iphone and AT&T agreement. Networks want to sell more than phones and calling plans, they want to increase revenue with data plans and data services. Nokia with Ovi would accomplish that in the same manner the Apple iphone and itunes does. With Nokia its all about building innovative phones that offer a great end user experience. With the North American network providers its all about greed and how can we drive up that ARPU today. Good luck Nokia dealing with these folks, you will need it.