Vodafone CEO Says Industry Has Too Many Operating Systems
LAS VEGAS -- Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin called on telecom to try to reduce the number of mobile operating systems in use from dozens to five or fewer. He said in a CTIA keynote Wednesday that, especially in the developing world, wireless is becoming the most important way to connect to the Internet.
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“I didn’t say one [standard], because we've seen that movie before, but three, four or five so we can actually encourage the harmony of scale in developing applications,” Sarin said. “Fundamentally, we need to reduce the number of operating systems for the benefit of our customers.” Vodafone owns Verizon Wireless with Verizon.
Sarin said he prefers Long Term Evolution (LTE), which last year was embraced by Verizon Wireless, among 4G technologies. The wireless industry must view LTE as a “broad and encompassing standard.” Earlier “wars” between GSM and CDMA supporters “produced very little” of value to subscribers or carriers, he said: “The last thing we need is dueling standards.”
“Internet on the mobile is the new, new thing in the industry, and it’s happening now,” Sarin said, but “we have to stay mindful of the consequences of not delivering here.” Wireless carriers face the risk of “getting marginalized by others who do these things better” and becoming just the “byte pipes” used by others. “Mobile Internet will play a central role in defining the future,” Sarin said. “Those [carriers] that lose will face challenging futures.”
During a keynote panel, the heads of major equipment makers said they view standardization as helpful as they build the pieces of advanced networks. “The aspiration to have a global standard where players like us can be as efficient as possible in R&D is a positive for us,” said Alcatel-Lucent CEO Patricia Russo.
Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski predicted that companies like Vodafone will roll out 4G technologies starting in 2010, earlier than previous projections of 2012 to 2014. “We talked about 3G for a long time before it became reality,” Russo agreed. She predicted 4G will roll out faster than 3G did.