The chairman of Motorola stood up in front of the cell phone industry today and said that what people want is better voice service. The chairmen of LG and Nokia said what people want is more bells and whistles.
From CNet:
But not being able to rely on a cell phone because a network is shoddy will turn back the expected tide of new users, Galvin said.
Absolutely right. If you can’t rely on a tech gadget to work, people won’t use it. And games and whizbang stuff aside, the main purpose of a phone is to make phone calls. But maybe I’m just an old fart.
How could LG and Nokia disagree that service needs to get better? Probably because better phone service is mostly an infrastructure issue, and Motorola is a much bigger infrastructure player than LG or Nokia, which rely more heavily on handset sales.
If cell networks aren’t built out, people won’t rely on cell phones. And that’s bad for the whole industry.