Is it good that the EU is regulating phone chargers?
On the latest episode of ATP, they discussed the EU ruling to enforce USB-C across mobile phones. The hosts had some mixed feeling about it, as do many. I like the push to get to a single cable, but this is a pretty big step regulation-wise to say the least. I think there are some solid criticisms of the new law. Specifically, it would be better if they didn't legislate a specific standard — and instead enforced conforming to a standard that companies can agree to. Instead they empowered the USB-IF to develop standards as technology evolves. This move in particular probably ensures slow innovation of wired charging technology — they are not known for speed.
But, is this really all that bad?
This situation reminds me of the early U.S. cellular phone networks. Back then, there were two dominant inoperable standards, CDMA and TDMA …with GSM being a distant third. If you bought a phone at my old employer, Cellular One, and tried to take it to Sprint at the other end of the mall, you couldn't activate it. You were locked in (You also had a 1 year contract and couldn't port your telephone number either, but that is another story).
This was also terrible environmentally. There had to be at least 2 towers everywhere you traveled - one for each carrier. Three if you were lucky enough to have Nextel as an option.
The EU, by contrast, established an international standard around GSM in 1987! Countries quickly (relatively) adopted it throughout the early 1990's which made phones in Europe much more portable between carriers, and increased coverage faster since carriers could more easily share towers. It took us in the US until the adoption of LTE in 2010 to make that happen. Correction: it took until they finished migrating to Voice over LTE in 2017 (The first LTE devices only used LTE for data and still fell back on CDMA and TDMA for voice - you may remember that weird time when we all had LTE phones but we still were locked into our carrier). There are still pockets of old networks being shut down.
This is a bit of a simplification of the history wireless networks, but my takeaway is that the EU has a better track record at regulating technology than we may be giving them credit for. And the USB-IF, while not a perfect organization, has managed USB well enough to get us to a single connector that works for almost all devices that delivers high enough speeds for anything but the most intense pro workflows.
I agree that allowing companies to develop technologies and having them agree on a standard may have been a better outcome. But how much better? USB-C would be the obvious near-term pick regardless. And corporations have been increasingly siloed in the ways they operate. Only after years of customer frustration do companies work together to create a standard like Matter. I am not sure I trust corporations to get there on their own.
So, here we are in 2022 and Apple, the major holdout for USB-C, is famously secretive. Are they planning to move to USB-C? Are they moving to wireless? Neither? If I am a EU lawmaker, my patience may be running thin.
It is true that we government regulated standards like phone jacks and electrical sockets have gone basically unchanged for years. There is little innovation. That is a feature, not a bug. Our lives have been much simpler since we decided on a standard and stuck to it. That is the point.
Note: I find the entire history carrier acquisitions and communication standards to be fascinating. I didn't even get to talk about AT&T Wireless becoming Cingular and then becoming AT&T again! If you are interested in falling into a rabbit hole of Wikipedia links, try these:
Cingular and AT&T mergers
History of US wireless carriers at Steel in the Air
Wireless history timeline at the Wireless History Foundation