Android
The new home of /r/Android on Lemmy and the Fediverse!
Android news, reviews, tips, and discussions about rooting, tutorials, and apps.
🔗Universal Link: !android@lemdro.id
💡Content Philosophy:
Content which benefits the community (news, rumours, and discussions) is generally allowed and is valued over content which benefits only the individual (technical questions, help buying/selling, rants, self-promotion, etc.) which will be removed if it's in violation of the rules.
Support, technical, or app related questions belong in: !askandroid@lemdro.id
For fresh communities, lemmy apps, and instance updates: !lemdroid@lemdro.id
📰Our communities below
Rules
-
Stay on topic: All posts should be related to the Android OS or ecosystem.
-
No support questions, recommendation requests, rants, or bug reports: Posts must benefit the community rather than the individual. Please post to !askandroid@lemdro.id.
-
Describe images/videos, no memes: Please include a text description when sharing images or videos. Post memes to !androidmemes@lemdro.id.
-
No self-promotion spam: Active community members can post their apps if they answer any questions in the comments. Please do not post links to your own website, YouTube, blog content, or communities.
-
No reposts or rehosted content: Share only the original source of an article, unless it's not available in English or requires logging in (like Twitter). Avoid reposting the same topic from other sources.
-
No editorializing titles: You can add the author or website's name if helpful, but keep article titles unchanged.
-
No piracy or unverified APKs: Do not share links or direct people to pirated content or unverified APKs, which may contain malicious code.
-
No unauthorized polls, bots, or giveaways: Do not create polls, use bots, or organize giveaways without first contacting mods for approval.
-
No offensive or low-effort content: Don't post offensive or unhelpful content. Keep it civil and friendly!
-
No affiliate links: Posting affiliate links is not allowed.
Quick Links
Our Communities
- !askandroid@lemdro.id
- !androidmemes@lemdro.id
- !techkit@lemdro.id
- !google@lemdro.id
- !nothing@lemdro.id
- !googlepixel@lemdro.id
- !xiaomi@lemdro.id
- !sony@lemdro.id
- !samsung@lemdro.id
- !galaxywatch@lemdro.id
- !oneplus@lemdro.id
- !motorola@lemdro.id
- !meta@lemdro.id
- !apple@lemdro.id
- !microsoft@lemdro.id
- !chatgpt@lemdro.id
- !bing@lemdro.id
- !reddit@lemdro.id
Lemmy App List
Chat and More
view the rest of the comments
Those are valid observations, but the different technologies all terminated to the POTS network, so phone calls across networks always worked. But it was just considerably more expensive to make phone calls on mobile than land lines where you could get flat-rate unlimited calling (local, not long distance, getting a cell phone then could potentially be cheaper for long distance). It was the early 00s when flat-rate unlimited plans were becoming common in the US, and that's when people started ditching their land lines.
AT&T was notable for being the first one (of the Big 3) here using internationally compatible GSM in the 90s. But it actually wasn't until LTE that Verizon stopped using CDMA for data (but they still used it for voice) in 2010 when we finally started seeing things trend towards adopting a common standard in the Big 3 national carriers. Sprint went with Wi-MAX instead of LTE for data at that time, and having to retool to LTE was one of the financial straws that broke their back.
It was exactly the same in Europe in terms of fixed line vs mobile call prices and ultimate connectivity.
The difference is that any mobile phone (the actual device) that worked for any one carrier in Europe would work for any other carrier in Europe, and although that carriers did try to lock-in customers with contracts and even carrier subsidized network locked phones, it was still possible to change carriers (especially after supporting number portability was made mandatory) plus roaming just seamlessly worked when moving all around Europe (turning the potential problem of market fragmentation in Europe into a strength as rather than a handful of continent-wide carriers with spotty coverage in some places, in Europe local carriers focused on local coverage and access when outside your carrier's are was provided via some other carrier via roaming).
I remember the talk on the Internet at the time (I've had a mobile phone since the 90s) and how americans constantly complained of the need of different phones for different carriers and the uneveness of countrywide coverage, unlike in Europe were if you bought your own "mobile phone" it would just work with whatever carrier you chose.
(Mind you, carriers tried to lock-in customers with locked phones, which funilly enough resulted in the mushrooming of little stores which would unlock your phone, all perfectly legal).
And yeah, LTE was part of GSM v3, hence why I mentioned it as the point when the US finally standardized its mobile network.
I don't disagree with you about different network technologies being a hindrance, but I was focused on things that make an analog to why SMS is so much more entrenched in the US. Clearly not a perfect analogy was made. :)
SMS used to be really entrenched in the EU also ... and overly expensive (given that, at least at first, they were limited by the protocol to about 180 bytes).
However when data smartphones became more common and data speeds became decent (roughly by the time of GSM v3 and LTE) people kinda figured out that if even a shit data plan was (back then) 10 euros for 100MB, paying 10 cents for a message of 180 characters was really was the mobile phone providers taking the piss and started using messaging solutions that used their dataplan, not the GSM network SMS protocol.
All this happenned in the smartphone age, so beyond the time when mobile phone interoperability was a problem in the US but not in the EU.
The strange difference with the US in this, IMHO, is how Europe ended up with mobile phone independent solutions rather than phone specific ones.
I feel like you didn't read their whole initial comment and hyper focused on the analogy instead of what they were talking about. Their comment is literally about the difference between US and Europe and why they ended up with different solutions for messaging. (high SMS fees in Europe vs unlimited SMS in the US).
Yeah, that's probably true :/