Why Your Cellphone Is So Lame
Want a cellphone on which you can seamlessly listen to music, watch TV, manage your social life, surf the Web--do everything short of wash laundry? To get it, you'll have to move to South Korea, where mobile technology is years ahead of the U.S. Not for long, though, if the implausibly named Sky Dayton has his way. The 34-year-old founder of EarthLink is hip-deep into his latest venture, Helio, a partnership between EarthLink and South Korean phone giant SK Telecom that aims to deliver South Korea's hottest handsets to Americans. Helio connects its customers by leasing spectrum from phone giants too busy serving the masses to bother with the niche needs of technophiles. We caught up with Dayton (on his cellphone, of course) to chat about the sorry, yet hopeful, state of cellphones in the U.S.
Q: First things first: Why does South Korea get art the cool phone stuff years before we do?
A: Geographically, we're much more spread out, which presents a greater challenge to our networks. In South Korea, 45 percent of the population lives in Seoul, so it's easy to wire, or un-wire, as it were. The U.S. just hasn't had a broadband wireless network until now.
Q: So what are we missing out en?
A: I was in Seoul watching these kids with their devices, and they were watching videos, videoconferencing, finding their friends Oh maps, pressing a button to feed the dog at home--and, by the way, they were also calling people. Flash to the U.S., where the experience is about calling and maybe downloading a ringtone or two.
Q: Have U.S. cellphone giants underestimated Americans' techno-lust?
A: It's a little bit like you don't know how dirty your windshield is until you clean it. Going into places like South Korea and seeing how they use mobile is starting to make people say, "Wow, there's a different possibility here."
Q: So tell us about your cellphones.
A: We have a saying around here: Don't call them phones. Call them mobile devices.
Q: OK, tell us about your mobile devices.
A: All of them are fully loaded with incredible speakers and an extra processor chip inside to manage heavy graphics. They play music and video really well, and they connect to MySpace, an online community of 75 million users. We literally went over to Korea, grabbed a bunch of hardware and software, and brought it over here. Then we plugged it all into the high-speed 3G networks that are finally reaching much of the U.S.
Q: Won't carriers just want your customers for themselves eventually?
A: That's highly unlikely. It's a great symbiotic relationship because of the scale it gives them. They focus on the general market, on one-size-fits-all. We're more like Mini Cooper, as opposed to Toyota. We're not for your mom and dad.
Q: …Who wouldn't pay $275 for a phone, anyway. Tell us your vision for the future.
A: It's a handheld computer. It will know where you are all the time, for instance, and it will have the ability to connect you with information from the real world. I could pop open my device in a movie theater and say, "Who do I know in this theater?" Chances are there are people who you know who you can connect to. It's pretty amazing how that will transform human relationships.
By: Carbonara, Peter, Popular Science
Q: First things first: Why does South Korea get art the cool phone stuff years before we do?
A: Geographically, we're much more spread out, which presents a greater challenge to our networks. In South Korea, 45 percent of the population lives in Seoul, so it's easy to wire, or un-wire, as it were. The U.S. just hasn't had a broadband wireless network until now.
Q: So what are we missing out en?
A: I was in Seoul watching these kids with their devices, and they were watching videos, videoconferencing, finding their friends Oh maps, pressing a button to feed the dog at home--and, by the way, they were also calling people. Flash to the U.S., where the experience is about calling and maybe downloading a ringtone or two.
Q: Have U.S. cellphone giants underestimated Americans' techno-lust?
A: It's a little bit like you don't know how dirty your windshield is until you clean it. Going into places like South Korea and seeing how they use mobile is starting to make people say, "Wow, there's a different possibility here."
Q: So tell us about your cellphones.
A: We have a saying around here: Don't call them phones. Call them mobile devices.
Q: OK, tell us about your mobile devices.
A: All of them are fully loaded with incredible speakers and an extra processor chip inside to manage heavy graphics. They play music and video really well, and they connect to MySpace, an online community of 75 million users. We literally went over to Korea, grabbed a bunch of hardware and software, and brought it over here. Then we plugged it all into the high-speed 3G networks that are finally reaching much of the U.S.
Q: Won't carriers just want your customers for themselves eventually?
A: That's highly unlikely. It's a great symbiotic relationship because of the scale it gives them. They focus on the general market, on one-size-fits-all. We're more like Mini Cooper, as opposed to Toyota. We're not for your mom and dad.
Q: …Who wouldn't pay $275 for a phone, anyway. Tell us your vision for the future.
A: It's a handheld computer. It will know where you are all the time, for instance, and it will have the ability to connect you with information from the real world. I could pop open my device in a movie theater and say, "Who do I know in this theater?" Chances are there are people who you know who you can connect to. It's pretty amazing how that will transform human relationships.
By: Carbonara, Peter, Popular Science
posted by James at 11:03 PM
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