Consumers have long been frustrated with how much control carriers — AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and the like — have exerted over what they could download to their mobile phones. But in the last nine months, carriers, software developers and cellphone makers have embraced a new attitude of openness toward consumers.
Verizon Wireless, which said in November that it would open its network to any device maker that could create a mobile phone compatible with its network, has already welcomed a few business-oriented devices. It hopes to announce new consumer phones in the coming months. When the world’s largest cellphone maker, Nokia, recently took full ownership of Symbian, which owns a popular mobile operating system, it agreed to share the software with other phone makers.
And on Monday, the LiMo Foundation, an alliance of companies promoting a rival operating system open to makers of all wireless devices, is announcing that seven new mobile phones would use that system, bringing the number to 21.
AT&T, like Verizon, has followed suit with a promise to also open its networks.
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