If there is one thing that is downright aggravating it is the multiplicity of connectors, cables, wall warts and headphones that make up the gear you need to use cell phones. Surprisingly South Korea’s cellular operators get it where our carriers (bless their little customer hostile ways) do not …
Spotted on Tech Dirt (great headline: ““>”Now They’re Just Rubbing It In Our Faces”) which pointed to a Phone Scoop item (dull headline: “Korean Carriers Demand Standard Connector”) which got the item from a source called Portelligent … anyway, the news is that the big three in South Korea (K Telecom, KTF and LG Telecom) signed a Memorandum of Understanding that commits them to all support the same standards for the ports on cell phones.
The motivation for this was that three companies apparently realized that “the lack of standardization prohibited development of value-added services which synchronize cellular phones with their external devices”.
How come these companies in a far smaller market get the fact that collaboration and mature competition are more effective for building a market while our providers apparently don’t give a damn?
Actually I have already given the answer: They don’t give a damn.
This may be because when a service company reaches a certain size it is only capable of fulfilling its bigger goals such as keeping its already built systems running and making profits. When you are corporately a little smaller perhaps you get a better view of the future and can actually see what will grow the market rather than just looking for how much of the market you can grab.
