On Fri, 14 Jun 2002, Benjamin Kowarsch wrote:
> There is a big difference between regulation by an independent
> regulatory authority with a public mandate, accountable to the public
> under clear legislation on the one side and a protectionist government
> leaving that "regulation" to a near-monopolist.
Sometimes, yes.
> The latter is employed in order to keep competition at bay and assist
> the the near-monopolist to keep the lead by way of creating an
> environment where there is a deliberate imbalance in favour of one
> participant. Japan has deliberately created such an environment.
And yet Japan still has the best mobile phone systems in the world,
with many, many features that exist nowhere else. And at prices no
worse (and sometimes much, much better--see e-mail vs. SMS) than
elsewhere. Interesting, hmm?
> Japanese innovation would have been based on either CDMA or GSM giving
> many of those innovations a chance to influence and shape the CDMA and
> GSM standards.
Or they just would have gotten bogged down, and ended up with the
same limited capabilities everyone else has. As Forrester points out:
But wide participation will slow OMA and put global standards
out of reach. Let's face it: The more players that get involved,
the more time it will take for them to agree on anything at
all -- and many will participate only to slow down development
and control the market.
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/59/25707.html)
> > From my point of view, the gimmicks I describe, certainly.
>
> The word is "arguably" not "certainly" ;-)
Only if you know my opinions better than I do. :-)
cjs
--
Curt Sampson <cjs_at_cynic.net> +81 90 7737 2974 http://www.netbsd.org
Don't you know, in this new Dark Age, we're all light. --XTC
Received on Sat Jun 15 20:17:54 2002