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Straddling Wireless Carriers III

With the rising count of complaints on the matter, a number of personalities have already put forward arguments detailing their concerns. Mr. Wu, of course, has been one of them. His observations on the issue as well as his elaborations on the subject, while having put some problems to rest, also raised a lot of tough questions. For instance, he undertook to expound on a number of plausible reasons why wireless carriers tended to cripple their digital telephone models.

There’s the matter of employing a price-discriminatory tactic. This works by selling a product that has been crippled to consumers at a significantly lower cost. There are two usual reasons for this.

One, the carriers may wish to preserve revenue streams. Thus, if a cordless phone happened to be equipped with WI Fi capabilities, it would negatively affect revenues generated by 3G or voice products. In such circumstances, the carrier will naturally opt to take measures to protect its income. In most corporate circles, pundits regard these as attempts to “prevent revenue leakage.”

This behavior, while understandable, is one instance where disagreeable carrier practices become glaringly obvious. Carriers, in this case, opt for choices that place consumers at a distinct disadvantage. Not all wireless carriers operate under such motivations, though.

In some situations, wireless carriers for cordless phones do not intentionally set out to advance their interests at the cost of consumers. Sometimes, what it is, is simply a case of bad judgment. Not everyone is perfect, not even heads of multinational corporations. One can hardly expect wireless carriers to go about their business for years without taking a few tumbles, here and there.

One clear example of this is manifested in several software development flaws that plague a number of cordless phones released for sale in the market. Carriers along with equipment manufacturers have implemented impracticable strategies on more than one occasion. Such practices often lead to a failure on their part to standardize features. Thus, emphasizing their interests in gaining greater control over new services that may spring up, in place of attempts they should have been doing to design improvements for existing ones already.

Considering all these, one is confronted by the fact that while some carrier practices may be good, some are damaging to consumers. As Wu has already said, what is called for is a comprehensive, if not absolutely informed, regulation of the wireless industry.

Still, whether it’s heedless self-interest or mistakes pushing the carriers, one has to admit that though companies and the industry should shoulder part of the blame, only a portion of it is well deserved. Mishaps have a way of happening, particularly in businesses where much of what is at stake relies purely on projections of the future.

Like the digital technology industry, where changes are constant and the only way to keep pace is to move to the front and keep oneself there by leveraging on every possible advantage we one has.

What becomes notable when one muses on matters of this sort is when companies build on a particular vision and exert great effort in their attempts to give full realization to it. Such pursuits prove that human vision and will continue to be guiding principles for many. Concern arises only when such motivations begin to edge aside ethical considerations, in complete and full favor of profit and greed.