The Pebble and the Avalanche

Moshe Thumbnail
Current Revolutions in Business and Technology

by Dr. Moshe Yudkowsky,

author of The Pebble and The Avalanche: How Taking Things Apart Creates Revolutions

 

Tue, 2009-Mar-24, 09:13

Story Marker
Sprints Sells Bits Wholesale

I have to admit that I don't like most cellular companies; I particularly find it galling that even after you've paid off the price of your handset, the cost of monthly service remains the same. With an artificially limited resource (cellular frequencies and towers) the companies can offer a take-it-or-leave-it package.

Sprint, a cellular company that continues to perform "poorly" according to Wall Street standards, has decided to branch off into other business models. Sprint provides the data service that downloads books to Amazon's Kindle book readers, and is rumored to be in talks with other companies for embedded data service — Eastman Kodak (photo sharing?) and SanDisk (wireless remote storage?). I'm impressed that Sprint has the foresight to disaggregate their cellular business into transport and telephony pieces, and the further foresight to consider per-bit charges instead of the usual monthly subscription model.

Comments are temporarily disabled while we work on anti-spam measures.

Trackbacks are closed for this story.

[ 1 ]