Standardizing cell phone chargers
Forgetting my cell phone charger in Toronto has already resulted in a week of weak connectivity. It need not be so. While it must be a gold mine for cell phone shops and manufacturers, the absurd proliferation of charger types is clearly an anti-competitive practice.
A government keen to protect consumers and boost overall economic efficiency would do the following:
- Require that all cellular phones be rechargeable using a standard connector.
- Ideally, that connector should be mini-USB (second from the left), capable of transferring both power and data.
- Require that adapters be sold for all phones made in the past five years, and that the cost of the adapters equal just the cost of shipping and manufacture.
As long as any charger could be plugged into any phone and provide power, firms would be free to compete in designing and building chargers that connect to electrical outlets, car cigarette lighters, or whatever other source of power seems fitting.
The intervention in the market is justified for the same reason as with all standards: it produces societal welfare without adverse effects. It replaces self-serving confusion generated by private firms with an ordered approach that makes sense for everyone. It is not as though there is any major innovation which can occur with cell phone chargers. At root, they are just plastic-wrapped wires that run from a socket to a circuit board. Having fewer types - and making them go obsolete less frequently - would also reduce the usage of energy and materials in manufacturing, as well as the number of (potentially toxic) plastic trinkets populating landfills worldwide. A standard would allow people to share chargers, as well as permit buses and trains to have universal charging stations available.
Something similar could be done for laptop computers. Cell phones and laptops are both ubiquitous elements of modern life and commerce. Just think how many productive hours are needlessly lost because each manufacturer wants to ensure that last year’s charger cannot be sold to someone buying this year’s phone.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:24 am
This is all a bit utopian. Why would we expect the state to pass such laws which are obviously in the best interest of consumers and not corporations?
April 30th, 2008 at 11:29 am
States do pass laws like this: for instance, the ones that force big internet and cell phone providers to lease parts of their network to other smaller providers.
Virtually all of competition law follows this general template.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Micro-USB to be phone-charger standard
David Meyer ZDNet.co.uk
Published: 20 Sep 2007 12:30 BST
The spaghetti-like nightmare that forms many users’ collection of phone chargers, headset connectors and data cables could be set to end after a major mobile industry forum agreed to standardise on one type of connector.
On Monday the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP) — a forum dominated by operators but including manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG — announced that its members had agreed on micro-USB as the future common connector.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
what bothers me is when head phone jacks are not the same size. Seriously?! that needs to be standardized, like right now! The cell phone thing is a bit far-stretched…. although I found that the Jitterbug charger works on several other different phones. Its the most standard thing I have seen…
April 30th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Can you please crossreference this post with the multi-step advice for not losing/forgetting things. I believe “trust but check” was one of the more sagacious morsels.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
How not to lose things
Thursday, January 31st, 2008
When leaving a hotel room or other room where you have been staying, cell phone chargers are absurdly easy to overlook.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I rode a bus from Ottawa to Fort St John, BC, to start a new job in an incredibly isolated area only to realize I had left my laptop power source on the kitchen table. Luckily, a co-worker also had an HP laptop so we alternated.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
I don’t see why the state needs to protect us from our forgetfulness. Owning a cellphone remains a free choice, meaning you can choose to own one or not and if you own one, you can choose to what extent you become reliant on it.
There is no good reason to give up control over the way in which we become cyborgs.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Tristan,
Correcting market failures is a well established role for the state - even when the industry where the failure exists is ‘optional.’
The state wouldn’t just be “protect[ing] us from our forgetfulness.” It would also be achieving the other benefits listed above - not least reducing the volume of black plastic dongles being tossed in the trash every year.
Standards are usually good for everyone. That is why they are generally within the mandate of nation-states to provide.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:22 am
I agree with Tristan in that it doesn’t seem to be a pressing issue that tax dollars and government energy should be spent on. We have enough tendrils of the state stretching through the minutiae of our lives; forcing cell phone companies to standardize seems like more of an act of convenience for the consumer, rather than a measure of protection for their rights.
The environmental effects are terrible, but not as terrible as some of the more indulgent, unmediated acts of pollution that corporations take part in. Say, chemical fertilizer use, or oil sands chemical treatment disposal.
Though, it would make life a damn lot easier.