The issue is that the network is oversold to the point of instability, and it seems to be affecting their entire network.

I've had Cingular/AT&T for 5 years now, and I never had any noticeable calling problems up until this year. Over the past 3 months I've had numerous dropped calls and bad reception problems while talking on the phone (handfree, yes this is legal in my state) on the way home from work. This is the same route I've been driving for all 5 years.

I wouldn't be too surprised to have problems in places I've never tried before, but in the same places I've always used my phone in? There's only a few possible causes there.. Overload, hardware failure, and botched reconfiguration are what pop to my mind. Given that we know bandwidth use is rising, and AT&T is cutting back on large equipment purchases, I strongly suspect overload.

Verizon will send you a SIM for your jail-broken iPhone??? Really? Do you know anyone that has done this?

All US versions of the iPhone are GSM / HSDPA based devices, and Verizon's network is CDMA / EVDO. These are fundamentally *VERY* different technologies, and the radio for one can't be re-used on the other. The iPhone can't be used on the Verizon network, regardless of what you do with the SIM, because it has the wrong radio.

There is a CDMA based iPhone out there, but it is designed to work in China and uses differet frequencies than Verizon does (and it doesn't have the right hardware to support the US frequencies, so this can't used either).

Now, t-mobile is another story, their network is GSM based... but Verizon is a no-go without a completely different radio system in the phone. (ie: a new, different model of iPhone is required.)

Well, that's the thing about antitrust. It doesn't really matter what you've told the customer, or what the customer has agreed to. Not telling consumers would be fraud. Antitrust is all about preventing a competitive market.

i.e.: if multiple manufacturers agree to a price-fixing arrangement for some product to raise prices across the market, it doesn't matter what they tell the consumers. They are still illegally colluding to prevent competition in a market.

However, I don't clearly see how this kind of market-impairment argument is likely to succeed in this case. It all boils down to:

Does Apple have the right to modify a product in a way that makes it only operate on one carrier that they have an agreement with, when those modifications serve no other purpose beyond carrier lock-out?

Clearly this does have an impact on competition in the wireless market, but is it a big enough impact to claim that it's restraining trade? Maybe, but it seems a bit of a stretch. These laws are primarily intended to prevent agreements that end up broadly rigging the market, not exclusivity agreements.

Fair enough, I wasn't really discussing the validity of the case, I was merely pointing out you don't need a monopoly to create an anti-trust lawsuit.

However, this does go beyond just an exclusive distribution arrangement. Here you're locking a product, which by design can be used on any GSM cellular network, and limiting it's use by the consumer to a specific carrier.

This would be equivalent to a music CD that has features intentionally added so it can only be played on Toshiba CD players, despite the fact that the disc is otherwise redbook compatible.

Your distribution example limits where a consumer can buy a product, but the reality here is they're also limiting where a consumer can use the product as well.

I still don't think it's likely to prevail, but it is a bit less simple than distribution.

And while this cell-carrier agreements are common, that doesn't mean they're unquestionably legal.

Minor Nit-pick: the iPhone only has 13.7% of the global smartphone market, however the iPhone has a much higher market share in the North America 23.3% (both figures are q2, 2009 canalsys). Since this is a US suit, NA numbers matter more.

That said, RIM still has more market share in the US, and Nokia has more globally.

However, market share doesn't really matter here.

Section 1 of the Sherman anti-trust act is about agreements that unfairly restrain trade at an inter-state level. You do not have to be a monopoly to violate that section. I strongly expect they're trying to pin Apple and AT&T with drafting an agreement that unfairly restrains trade by preventing buyers of the phone from switching carriers.

Section 2 is all about monopolies, but that section is not the only kind of violation covered under the Sherman anti-trust act.

Memory implants, to prevent you from remembering exactly what you've seen. This protects the MPAA from you possibly describing, or heaven forbid, pantomiming their protected content to another person who has not yet paid for it. It further protects them from you replaying the previously viewed material to yourself in your mind, which would be an unpaid reproduction...

3 years? Heck, I'm impressed if they last for more than 3 months these days.

So much of the printer market has collapsed into the black-hole of making extraordinarily low cost devices. Even a lot of the higher-end business market seems to be affected. We have a leased "high end", major brand (I'm not naming names), 60ppm multifunction laser, 14+ ream capacity, etc.It was new when installed 1 year ago and we've had to have factory techs out here repairing mechanical failures twice this year. Fortunately, it's leased so the service is covered, but still...

It's really sad when printers are having a hard time lasting longer than their consumables, but it seems to be the case now days. Sad, Sad, Sad.

You mean like the Rocketfish toslink cable with 24k gold plated connectors..

Yeah, they have those too:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7832223&type=product&id=1142297086861

"24K gold-plated connectors for corrosion resistance and enhanced signal transfer"

Brilliant.

Yes, but the manufacturing of felt cloth probably hasn't changed in 25 years (or more).

Manufacturing is one of those areas were you see a lot of really obsolete systems in use, because the machines they control are able to last for many decades with a little maintenance. The job never changes, the machine never changes, what does a new computer buy you? A faster processor won't change how fast the motors of the machine turn, so it only buys you reliability.

Upgrading the control computer of a manufacturing system to a new platform is not a simple endeavor. That's not just a quick "buy a new Windows machine and install the software" type job that costs around $1-2k including labor. In many cases you'll end up reverse engineering the entire controls system and writing new software from scratch (with no documentation). Ugly, expensive, and a lot of downtime for the overall system. (we're probably talking $200k or more here.)

Of course, running with the old platform risks downtime, but it's by far cheaper to track down spare parts on ebay and stockpile em. A small, low margin, MFG plant for basic commodity goods generally can't afford to spend $200k to replace a working computer system with a different one. Yes that $200k gets you a new computer, which reduces your risk of computer hardware failure, but that's a heavy investment for little gain.

It's by far cheaper for them to farm ebay for spare parts and stockpile them. When they can't get more parts, then invest a million or so in replacing the whole setup, getting new machinery, computer, and upgrading production speed and/or quality in the process.