Open access for wireless is inevitable, and everybody wins, says Martin Cooper, co-founder, ArrayComm and father of the cell phone, in a commentary on RCR Wireless News.
The concept of open wireless networks is not new. In fact, an obligation to support “reselling” was embedded in the original FCC rules that created the cellular industry.
“Openness” is being reborn, for a number of reasons, and this time I predict that it’s going to stick. There is finally a realization that the explosion of the Internet was due, in large part, to its openness; to the fact that the applications and services that have made the Internet so valuable to us were created in a competitive environment that is friendly to entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs.
The CEOs of Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile all endorsed the concept of open networks.
True open access to wireless network is inevitable. In contrast with the Carter decision in which the FCC mandated the open access that initiated the collapse of the wireline walled garden in 1968, wireless open access will happen without intervention by the government or the courts. It will happen for one simple reason: open access is good business…
