This, of course, makes perfect sense. Sprint is a CDMA carrier and the new Kindle international reader is GSM – which is what most of the world uses.
According to FierceWierless, Amazon announced this at a conference in San Francisco today. They said that it would be too confusing to sell two versions of the Kindle, one for the US and one for international use, and so they decided to go completely GSM and use AT&T as their new carrier. They will continue to use Sprint for the Kindle DX and will also continue to support the Sprint devices already in use.
Thanks to the Kindle Chronicles for the link.
This was so obvious that I’m surprised they ever went with CDMA.
No surprise, and the right decision, but it makes me wonder how long my Kindle2 will actually be supported, given Sprint’s problems. Of course, Bezos could always switch us legacy owners to Verizon. The bottom line, though, is that I’m really looking forward to the iPad; the iPhone has always been GSM, and I expect its progeny to follow suit.
Idle question: Does my Kindle2 have a “phone number” in the usual sense, or just an IP address on Sprint’s data network? Or is that a meaningless question?
Kindles probably just use the ESN as the identifier and do not have an actual phone number or IP address.
They probably went with CDMA because that was the protcol in use by the only vendor they could reach an agreement with at the time of the original Kindle introduction. Now that there is widespread interest over the approach that Amazon took with the Kindle – ebooks/wireless cell – everyone wants to get in on the action so getting telco vendors is likely easier and more competitive.
And then in a few years they will get a better deal with t-mobile(formerly Deutche Telecom) in order to provide international coverage for their wispernet and somewhere down the line in 10 years they will have moved to UMTS and some 3d firm and turns off the wisperne for the existing kindles because well they have an expected lifespan on 3 years anyway.
Somewhere in this the economics of owning a locked in kindle starts taking it’s toll and theres no getting off the kindle without leaving every purchase behind.
As the practical reality kicks in theres the economics of ereaders are completely reduculus, with ebook tiltes being prized around the same as mass market paperbacks and the reader having a limited lifespan.