Intellectual Property Law

VZ open development initiative

By Susan Crawford

Verizon’s Open Development Initiative may end up being a breakthrough for device manufacturers.  As usual, the devil is in the details, and we don’t even have the details to dig through yet.  But at least the outlines of the project sound encouraging.

As it was explained to me, the idea is to be more open to manufacturers of CDMA devices using VZ spectrum (all of it).  Manufacturers will need to get their devices certified for use on VZ’s networks, a process which is supposed to take 4-6 weeks.  This is much quicker than the current VZ device certification process for devices sold as VZ - that can take a year.  (Device manufacturers who are working through the Open Development Initiative will also need to figure out with VZ what their joint business model will be - how much of a cut VZ gets, what kind of voice and data plans will be offered to end users, etc.)  Then customers can take those new devices and go to a web portal to activate it.  Then they’ll be on the VZ network.

As far as I can tell the specs for the devices aren’t on the Initiative site for public consumption, but I’ve been told that manufacturers are happy with them.  Certification processes are supposed to be in place soon, implemented by third-party labs.  VZ is also saying that they will not limit the applications that can be run using these new devices, although they’re hopeful that the new plan will provide additional distribution outlets for their own software.

I’m curious how CALEA and E911 compliance will be handled - we’ll have to see that in the certification specifications.

VZ is saying that devices that aren’t theirs won’t get device-customer-service from VZ (unless the manufacturer has arranged for VZ to provide it), but network issues will remain VZ’s to deal with.

VZ’s plan is that the Open Development Initiative will be very attractive for device-to-device business models and will help offset losses in pure voice revenues.  They’d like to be investing in new partners that they meet through the initiative.  And they plan to allow this new initiative to compete directly for attention and customers with the traditional Verizon Wireless part of their business.  (They’re not planning to have new applications from this initiative running on traditional VZ handsets.)

Lots of details to come.  Will ordinary end-users opt for unsubsidized handsets?  Will the certification process require that the devices only allow applications that adhere to IMS-like signaling standards, or other limitations that might be harmful to innovation? What pricing plans will be offered to customers, and will they be attractive? How restrictive will certification testing be?  How useful will the certification information be to application developers?  Why aren’t the new applications allowed to run on VZ handsets? I’m skeptical, but looking forward to knowing more.

We haven’t yet seen the first device deal, but all of this is in the works and VZ is promising news very soon - hence this post.

Full post as published by Susan Crawford Blog on June 03, 2008 (boomark / email).