Vodafone denies interest in bidding for Verizon Communications
By Darren Murph 
posted Jul 17th 2007 11:20AM
posted Jul 17th 2007 11:20AM
Poor Vodafone, it just can't seem to escape the vicious rumor mill these days. Hot on the heels of a plethora of iPhone talk, now the firm is being forced to deny rumors that it was considering a $160 billion offer for Verizon Communications. Previously, it was suggested that Vodafone was interested in "consolidating ownership of its wireless joint venture," as it currently holds just a 45-percent stake in the wireless division (Verizon Wireless, obviously) of the firm. Notably, Verizon officials declined to comment on the recent activity, but Vodafone spokespersons didn't hesitate to state that "it had no plans to make such an offer." Man, what a killjoy.
You know, I don't have Vodafone but I have used them in Europe... and you know what would be nice? If Verizon just got eaten up and turned into Vodafone, because I am so done with Verizon. The customer service used to be good, but recently the reps have no idea how to help, and I've had to send back 6 phones as they all cease to work.. ugh I have cell phone woes.
Well darn, that would have been pretty cool. I'm sick of Verizon.
LOL. What a joke. Verizon's bigger than that dumb limey group -- how are they gonna buy Verizon?
The home turf (US of A) needs another GSM carrier with balls and put this country out of CDMA misery... GOD help us andget rid of Verizons, Sprints Alltels and all other crap running on CDMA.... Long live GSM (P.S. Before anyone bashes me about the lack of knowledge... I do know that 3G GSM is based on CDMA..W-CDMA 2 b exact)
Jesus dude why the grudge? If you don't like CDMA, don't get CDMA... your solution would just eliminate competition and give the customers fewer choices.
CDMA is not going anywhere in the US. Sorry dude, guess you better move to Europe.
Hmmm...fewer choices??? How is that a fewer choices if you can pick any handset available on the market as your own...have you heard of a little piece of technology called "SIM Card"? I was not talking about getting rid of CDMA carriers. What I meant was to convert them to GSM/UMTS - how would that make less choice??? And you're right... I will NEVER go with CDMA carrier as they like the "prison" setup (our handsets, our content, F-U the rest of the world). I also don't like they way WCDMA handsets work. They feel like every application that runs on them is a web service (try sending a text message form any sprint phone..it launches the application as a micro web page or sort - not for me. Thank you. I prefer the freedom of choice in devices and what I put on it.
Yeah, and the selection of American GSM phones sucks just as much as CDMA. Most of those nifty looking European and Asian GSM phones not only cost a fortune unlcocked, but even if they work on American GSM voice they don't work on American HSDPA.. so yeah, your choices are still kinda limited.
And don't be so naive to think that just because AT&T is GSM doesn't mean they never lock features off phones. Hell lots of people in Europe bitch at Vodafone for locking VoIP off their phones.
So yeah, even if you made Sprint and VZW GSM carries, hardly much at all would change.
Try again.
I would not be so sure. If the US GSM market would consist of 5 vs 2 GSM carriers I'm pretty sure phone manufacturers would pay closer attention to the market. And at the same time I'm pretty sure the W-CDMA frequency would be pretty much the same on all carriers so instead of 10 millions of T-Mobile customers and 60some millions of AT&T plus add another 60 or so millions of potential customers from Verizon ONLY then this market would become a nice piece of chunk for some "small" cell phone manufacturers such as Nokia or Samsung. It's true that the carriers lock the features on the devices but on GSM you have the freedom of getting the device outside of the carrier's chain as opposed to CDMA (VZV, Sprint, Alltell, US Cellular)...they won't even activate a handset unless it's sold by them (try porting Sprint phone to Verizon or US Cellular to Alltell - NO WAY even though they all operat on the same kind of network). Personally to me CDMA is the common "walled garden" - play all you want as long as it's on our play list.
all cell phone providers have programed the networks to work one way or another. the reason for some phones to have things work on one provider vs another is just that. now why does a cell phone provider care about activating a phone not badged to that company? the big reason is that they can not provide customer service for a undadged phone software is different and things just cant add up to how the provider wants to deal with quality. The only company who does not care is criket because they just get whatever and want the service. The same goes for all other carriers the difference is that those carriers care about churn and customer retention in most cases (*sprint haha*). So when you complain about carriers taking only this or that phone its for the greater good and thats the quality of your service with your carrier.
Chris,
One thing about unlocked phones is that the person that buys an unlocked phone usually has a bit more knowledge than the person buying the device directly from the provider. Also these days newer phones (Nokia for example) will pull the carrier settings automatically as soon as you put the sim card in so you don't have to have the knowledge of setting WAP, GPRS, MMS etc access points so it's just a matter of choice. Also more basic phones directly off the shelf do not provide much -NETWORK- based functionality (MP3 players, Camera, Games out of the box do not need the network access...it's the secondary actions..downloading the music, sending MMS, Network games). To bash the network providers even further and prove their ignorance towards the customer here's a scenario...Currently T-Mobile offers Motorola RIZR V6 but DOES NOT offer SLVR. So you go online, buy SLVR...then call T-Mob and ask for help... Sorry Sir...we do not offer support for this phone. Now THIS IS a COMPLETE ignorance as Motorola uses their crappy OS in majority of their phones so how different is the config on SLVR from RIZR... There's NONE or a VERY little. Another example.. Nokia Series 40... I won't mention any devices because S40 is S40 on all devices so instead of giving the customer a BS why not having a quick access to a database that would show what OS the system runs and providing OS support instead of Device support. It's pretty much the same on all devices. With CDMA the problem is that the OS's are SO crippled / customized but still the guts stay the same.
-Matt
all valid points and i see your side. In the end i never see the cdma providers moving to gsm. I also dont see that as a problem. My reasons for this are that phones can be built with all this tech. in one device. When people actualy choose to leave the usa for at least once and global phones capeability becomes more of a requirement like in eroupe ( many countries smaller space) will we begin to see more world phones out of those providers. As for operating systems i see crippled as a way to introduce the phones the way the provider wants them to be. Its a pain in the butt for most of us who want more out of our phones, though from the many people i meet in a day it seems they rather have just a phone. So as for calling your provider about your phone that is unlocked for provider free it seems to me that yes the choose not to help you or provide any assistance that is not the responceability of the provider because the phones they sell are setup out of the box. When you call them to get help with a phone they never setup the company loses money just by the fact you called for something that was done for the phones they sell at the store. The only way this can change is if companies like nokia and motorola have all the requred access to set up any phone for any carrier at point of sale or for online orders have it hook up in a way like the iphone. Hook it up through usb and it loads motorolas web page and says who is your provider? (t-mobile) great! your mobile number? (123456789) Thank you your phone is now being programed for that carrers network. one minute later your setup slide in your sim and go. this though would cost alot of money that compaines like motorola in my opinion can not afford. It is a great wish though! I think the only way this can happen is if the cell phone providers where in some way forced to stop contracting customers. Well any way that is my two cents this time around. let me know what you think.
-Chris
Chris,
I see your point as well (customer wasting telco's money) but at the same time I think it would benefit both parties... End user would be happy that s/he can get support without being penalized for forking out a big chunk of money and the carrier would gain respect in user's view. As far as customizing the OS for the end user at the point of sale - Nokia could implement this even today. Each of their devices (the new phones) has a product code embedded. Depending on the product code firmware updates are made available. Certain "product codes" are assigned to certain providers so the crenario would be like this... You buy the phone with the MOST basic functionality...When you get home (or even at the store) you are baing asked for Phone Model / Country / Carrier. Then the last selection COULD BE - Carrier branded OS or Unbranded. Voila... OS of your choice gets downloaded to your device and off you go. That's what many people have done with their nokias (Including myself on my N95.. I bought US version in Chicago but wanted Polish language pack on it. I changed the product code and the phone downloaded the Polish unbranded firmware. Changing product code is at this point a -hack- but could be easily implemented into the official phone update software you download from Nokia's site. My wild guess is that other companies with user accessible phone updates (Sony Ericsson is another one) have it implemented in a similar way.