Re: "Windows phones' free-fall may force Microsoft to push harder on Windows 10 adoption"
I think you misunderstand how roaming works in the E.U.
U.S. carriers differentiate between domestic and international roaming. As far as I'm aware, the former never existed in any E.U. country. From a European's perspective, domestic roaming is just another example of U.S. carriers ripping off their customers. I can still find forum posts of U.S. citizens complaining about domestic roaming charges in 2014. I agree that such shenanigans should have disappeared a decade ago. Apparently they have not.
What Europeans do have is international roaming charges, but customers of U.S. carriers have that too (this depends on agreements between carriers and the countries you visit, just like it does in the E.U.), so it's not true that roaming is a foreign concept to U.S. carriers. I don't know where you get your news, but it sounds to me like you've been hoodwinked ;-) U.S. "news networks" misrepresenting the situation beyond U.S. boarders would really just be business as usual however, at least that's what my U.S. friends tell me.
Sure there is no domestic roaming in Europe, but your countries are the equivalent of our states. What you have is like if I, who live in Pennsylvania, would drive 75 km across the border to Delaware and have a roaming charge. We have not had domestic roaming for many years. If you were told that we do, you were misinformed. Again, the United States is a large country, double the size of the entire EU.
I know, I am equating the US with the EU. Technically each EU country is as much its own country as the US is. But in practicality, a European going to a neighboring country is the equivalent of an American visiting a neighboring state. The technical difference is that an American is still in the same country, but the European is now in a foreign country.
Where this makes a difference in real life is that someone who is a customer of an EU carrier cannot go more than a few hundred km from home without incurring an international roaming charge. Americans can go thousands of km from home without roaming charges. I can go from my home on the East coast to Honolulu, Hawaii, which is 8,000 km away, and have no roaming charge. Even Canada and Mexico are included now for many US carriers. I would wager that the vast majority of Americans have never seen a roaming charge on their bill (within the last 15 years), and would have no idea what it even is. It is a totally foreign concept here.
The fact remains that it would be monumentally stupid to unilaterlally and for no reason disable bands. You're basically claiming that MS is that stupid. I suspect reality is more complicated. Neither of us knows what went on. We can't place blame without knowing.
As good as your English is I'm not sure where you got the idea I said that MS is stupid. I'm actually disputing that fact. To say that MS was not able to active the CDMA radios for whatever reason, which is what most MS fans here are saying,
is actually saying that MS is stupid, since other OEMs seem to be able to manage it. I fully agree that in all likelihood reality is more complicated.
I do not know why Microsoft purposely left the CDMA radios inactivated in the 950/XL. And yes, I am assuming that it was their decision to make, since other OEMs enabled them. But it makes even less sense to think that it is Verizon's fault, since by law they cannot disallow it on their network, and other OEMs are doing it.
Here's my guess: considering the cost of activating and certifying the CDMA radios to work on Verizon and the relatively low number of units expected to sell, specifically the units that would end up being used on Verizon, and adding in the bad blood between Microsoft and Verizon, Microsoft probably didn't expect it to pencil financially. It was probably more a business decision that came down to dollar and cents than anything else.
Anyway, I need to go. I have to list a 950 I have from the recent BOGO promotion.