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For Carriers, An Open-And-Shut Case On Wireless

The spectacle of the U.S. wireless carriers falling over themselves to look like proponents of "openness" has intensified with the launch of an AT&T campaign declaring itself "the most open wireless company in the industry." Pardon me if I don't break out the champagne.

In interviews with a credulous USA Today reporter and a slightly more skeptical Engadget editor, Ralph de la Vega, the CEO of AT&T's wireless unit, made a host of such statements, like "We have always been very open in terms of working with manufacturers," and "If you look at what we offer our customers today, we offer them choice."

De la Vega is on a plane today, but Atlanta-based spokesman Mark Siegel confirmed that AT&T has decided that now is the time to broadcast more widely that customers have long been able to use unlocked devices on the U.S. No. 1 carrier's network, as long as they're equipped with the appropriate SIM card from AT&T.

"We want people to understand that we already are open," Siegel told me. "We saw the light a long time ago, and now maybe others are catching up to that."

By "others" he means Verizon Wireless, which last week said it would open its CDMA network to third-party devices and applications. This rush to open the carriers' kimonos has been prompted by one company -- Google. The announcement of Google's open-source-based mobile platform, Android, has sprung a leak in the dike jamming up the U.S. wireless business, and now the Big Carriers -- who have heretofore specialized in not giving their customers' choice -- must now go with the flow, as it were.

So the AT&T pronouncements can be translated as, "Hey, we've always been open! (We just didn't want you to know.)"

What AT&T is not doing is a) opening up the iPhone, or b) joining the Google-led Open Handset Alliance, which promises to deliver faster development times for innovative mobile devices running on open networks.

"If, in the context of giving people as wide a choice as possible, what Google is suggesting makes sense for our customers, that's something that we'll certainly consider," says Siegel.

OK. You wouldn't want to rush into all this openness or anything, would you?

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