Slashdot Mirror
Verizon Sues Nextel For Espionage
jonknee writes "Verizon is going after Nextel for a little corporate espionage. Verizon says that Nextel got its hands on some internal prototypes of models aimed to compete with Nextel's Direct Connect technology. Verizon's service is slotted to start up anytime, and a few other carriers are expected to launch similar services."
"...claims Nextel obtained prototypes..."
How did they get them? Was it an upset employee, did they put some one in the work force to steal the prototypes?
So could Nextel be sued for receiving stolen property?
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
This topic isn't talked much about, but I wonder (statistically) who would be calling the shots on doing operations like these. The higher ups? The board?
Colossians 2:8
The article has no details on one point, how did Nextel "improperly obtain" the prototypes. Something tells me that they didn't just walk into Verizon's corporate headquarters and ask, and I doubt they pulled off a Mission Impossible stunt.... so likely, someone inside of Verizon had a small grudge and had already tried calling the BSA.
In which case.... Verizon could probably argue that.... ummm, the phones fell off the back of a truck.
http://www.fastmobile.com/services_fastchat.html
What I don't understand is.. that Verizon,
Sprint PCS and AT&T Wireless are ALL coming out
with versions of Direct Connect for their phones..
all modeled after Nextel's with a few
hundred mile range..
And Nextel is releasing their new Nationwide
version which will allow people to direct connect
with anyone across the entire United States..
so what reason does Nextel have to worry and
spy on Verizon? And why VERIZON of all people?
AT&T is the one with the GLOBAL impact,
not Verizon.
I think this is just a way to impose negative
thoughts onto Nextel so that Verizon will have a
chance of selling their phones with DirectConnect
technology.
But maybe I am wrong, and Nextel got dumb.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia, claims Nextel obtained prototypes of Verizon cell phones to "obtain valuable, confidential, and proprietary business information," then share any negative news with industry analysts, according to an account of the suit in The Wall Street Journal.
Either Verizon has a gung-ho marketing department or they're taking a page from the creeps at RIAA (http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981449.html). Either way, now we ALL know that Verizon's coming out with a walkie-talkie.
I'm not really a web designer, I just play one on the Internet.
What is Verizon whining about this time... other than the fact that Nextel's Direct Connect has been out for... how long? ELEVEN YEARS?
They are suing Nextel because *they* (Verizon) are a tad bit slow in coming to market?
I don't want to hear them now... or anytime.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Perhaps I don't get the joke correctly, but shouldn't that have been 'not-fair-peeking'?
This looks like it will become a very good service, especially since number portability starts up in a couple months or so. So, everyone on the Nextel network can switch over to verizon, if they have a better/cheaper service. The downside of DirectConnect, though, is that when you have someone trying to explain something to you over the phone, you have to wait until they get done talking, which could take minutes. I've seen people yell at their phone in agrivation of the person not shutting up (even thought the person on the other side could not hear).
"Men lie."
"Yeah, about sleeping with other women, but never about bioluminescent plankton."
-Dan Brown
Nah it's simple, the prototypes arrived in the Nextel offices by osmosis.
There was a low concontration of prototypes in the Nextel office, and a high concontration elsewhere..
Last.fm - join the social music revolution
I'm sure that guppylog blog of yours will go a great way toward helping out with educating /. readers on corporate espionage =)
And why isn't someone out there filing suit against verizon for extortion, or unfair competitive practices?
.10 to a $ each month for no apparent reason.
Has anyone out there simply tried to get a simple phone line? It's near impossible! I just want a flat rate phone line that won't call to 'extended local areas' (.20 a min) that don't require an area code. Or how about the caller id/call blocking features they sell to consumers that they then turn around and sell anti call blocking to telemarketers?
I don't think I have to spell it out for any one, but we all know how verizon uses it's power to leverage the telecommunications industry and the government. They work harder so we can be further confused by our phone bills that each month only seem to go up and up and up.
Nextel is one of my only bills that seems to stay exactly the same each month. While my all my other communications bills seem to go up
i think direct connect is pointless and stupid. calls are getting so cheap and minutes so plentiful that you might as well talk on direct connect. it's not like the police cannot tap the phone on direct connect or anything... :sigh:
It'll be interesting to compare the outcome of this with RIAA/MPAA inspired "piracy" cases.
In the entertainment media world, ordinary people who engage in "piracy" have perhaps a hundred thousands dollars (at MSRP) worth of music which, even if widely distributed might account for maybe a couple of million dollars in lost gross retail revenue.
In this situation we have executives of a major corporation who are potentially doing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to their competitors; the scale of business damage exceeds the RIAA-type cases by at least a single order of magnitude and many more if like me you don't buy the inflated damage estimates of the media companies.
So how many Nextel executives will face $500/month penalties for life? How many will face jail time or massive civil penalties of millions of dollars?
My guess is zero, but I can't explain why -- if theft of IP eq damage, why won't the same rules that the recording industries want to apply to you and apply to corporate executives that engage in piracy (and perhaps other more nefarious crimes like breaking and entering, theft, purchase of stolen property)?
Or is this just another double standard where the harsh end of the law applies to you and I, but if you're a corporate guy it doesn't?
Actually the article says Sprint PCS, not Verizon's push to talk service is expected to go live soon.
construction companies, trucking firms and others who once used walkie-talkie-like devices to instantly connect to others is thier market. Thats it. Granted its prolly a pretty big chunk of change but theres people acting like it's the next big thing and really its only a walkietalkie replacement.
Still useful to the average consumer? Sure. Itd be like having a walkie talkie with you. Id love to have this service with my phone if I could just push2talk my friends while driving in a caravan or running around the mall or whatnot. I wouldnt pay much extra though.
Isn't that already a trademark of NeoModus?
Or are file-sharing and telecommunication different enough to justify the same name?
Sure they could switch over, but they would all have to get NEW phones. IDEN is unique to Nextel phones. I pay a pretty high $70 a month for my nextel phone, but I had 3000+ incoming minutes last month during PEAK usage hours and didn't pay a dime extra. Reason: I have a free-incoming plan with Nextel.
Could someone please tell me why we need basically "walkie-talkie" service on a cell phone? I have a ton of minutes, why would i replace good quality full duplex with this service? Its like text messaging, in the U.S. we get so many minutes nowadays who cares about these other minute saving features anymore?
I've noticed nextel's service has gotten much more popular recently, and not among the target audience of construction workers and business-types. Everywhere I go people are carrying around their phones like star trek communicators, using this feature.
"Hey how you doing?" -- BEEDEEP!
"Not bad" -- BEEDEEP!
"Are you going to the mall later?" -- BEEDEEP!
"Nah I don't think so" -- BEEDEEP!
As if cell phones weren't bad enough for making people talk very loudly into their phones, nextel has somehow managed to make cell phones more rude by subjecting everyone to both sides of the converstation and adding a loud beeping after every communication!
This feature should die, quickly. It's an ok idea for construction workers, but it just adds to the noise of life for everyone else.
I agree about the one-way Direct Connect problem. Although, if you think about it, a two-way version is also known as a phone (and Nextel's with DC can function as speakerphones with the built in speaker). I still think it would be a nice capability to build in full-duplex into DC functionality as well.
There is one way around the waiting for someone to stop talking that I have found. At least on my I-80, whenever someone is talking to you over Direct Connect, the "Exit" option is still active on screen. If you press that, it forces a disconnect (and gives an annoying beep on the other end, analogous to the "person busy" error.) Then you can talk to them, or do whatever.
Verizon wilreless uses standard cell hardware available for license by many service providers in the U.S. and internationally, so exactly what is being alledged here? Is it that Nextel entered into a contract with the same hardware manufacturer that Verizon was going to use in providing a competing service, or is it that Nextel aquired hardware from such a manufacturer when that hardware was exclusively developed for/licensed to Verizon. The article is vary sketchy about this rather important detail.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
This news should bring the shares up ...
m l? tid=129&tid=188
? Nextel to pay 500 Millions to Verizon every month for the next 30.000 years because of the 'potential loss' the release of the 'stolen' technology might have done to Verizon.
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/06/28/181227.sht
I agree, the beeps are annoying in a resteraunt. However two-way is intended to be more public. When the foreman asks the boss a question, all the underlings are likely to need the answer, by using two-way we know how the boss wants it done. (and can tell the foreman he is wrong when he starts doing it wrong)
I guess you saw me talking to my Manager.
Anyway I had a manager who was guilty of this all the time. The way I delt with this by removing the battery off the phone...
verizon is behind the times once again, BitTorrent is the best p2p application !
Once Verizon's PTT goes through, I can finally give the phone to someone, have them stick it in their pants, And laugh as they wonder who's yelling "The talking pants..."
I knew that there was something wrong about that guy!
A number of years ago I ran into a guy who worked for a major telecommunications company. He worked in a department called, if I remember correctly, "Strategic planning". What it amounted to was that he basically led a team of corporate spies. They'd go into a country that was setting up a new phone network from the competition, pay off someone in the local telephone company, and then they'd get to grab some of the competition's latest hardware for an hour or two, disassemble it, take pictures, put it back together and return it. All so they could keep up with what the competition was doing. Eventually they were busted and some of these guys spent time in a foreign jail. I can't vouch for the authenticity of the story, but for what it's worth, I believe him. I expect this sort of stuff happens all the time.
Then let them steal and implement it.
What is this "thing" you ask? Why the famous (or is that INfamous, as in, "It means he is not just famous, but he is _IN_-famous") Verizon customer support. By the time Nextel actually figures this out it will be too late. Unfortunately, at best that just puts their service on par with yours... hopefully you have something else to make up for that (price, quality, availability, etc)
I remember one month, quite vividly, where the technical people came out and said that, "We've got the capabilities to compete with Direct Connect, however, it's not something that we're interested in."
I still find it very difficult to think that any of the cellular carriers will get off their collective, "I'm the king, try to push me off, this is how it's done" asses, but, hey...who knows.
I disable sigs...do you?
I can tell you first hand that Nextel would never do such a thing as this. I finished taking a company required moral ethics class via the net (class has been a requirement for employees for years now) that deals with instances EXACTLY as this one. Sure, an individual employee may have gained unauthorized access at some point, but Nextel would have fired the guy immediately and turned over any information/equipment, etc. to Verizon. There's not a chance in hell they would have used it to gain an advantage. As stated by another /.'er, they have no reason to do this; Their Direct Connect/Walkie Talkie has been perfected over 11 years and it now works from coast to coast (soon to be international as well).
So what's the reason for Verizon filing suit? They probably heard a Nextel company executive at some point say that they believe Verizon's PTT like service will not live up to Nextel's.
But here's the real reason: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030620/205239_1.html
You see, on June 20th, Nextel had multiple trademarks approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The following trade marks (TM) belong to Nextel: PTT, Push To Talk, Push Power, and Nationwide Walkie Talkie (there may be others I'm not aware of).
Now this is a REAL PROBLEM for Verizon who needs to describe their "walkie-talkie" like service somehow. They need a name for it, and a catchy one at that. Nextel had a hell of a time getting consumers to understand what "Direct Connect" is. It wasn't until switching to using the term "Walkie-Talkie" that they found it clicked immediately what the service was. Everyone knows what a walkie-talkie is.
So it is my opinion that Verizon filed suit over some bogus claim in retaliation to Nextel having their trademarks approved. If Verizon doesn't find a good name for their product and can't any decent terms to describe it (must sum up the meaning in one to three words to catch people's attention) their service will have an extremely difficult time launching. How are you going to convice consumers they should add another charge/service to their phones if you can't adequately explain what it is/does without calling it a walkie talkie, ptt or push to talk service?
Wherever you go, there you are.
Am I mistaken or haven't the terms Push-To-Talk and PTT been around since the 1940s? These terms have been used on every voice communications radio that has ever been produced. I don't care who it is, you shouldn't be allowed to trademark a term that has been so openly used for more than half a century
I am sure this has nothing to do with the fact that Verizons push to talk(or push wait talk) has a 7-8 second lag time whereas Nextels service is almost instantaneous(even coast to coast).
NEXTEL MEMO
After a cunning infiltration into Verizon's headquarters, agent 008 was revealed. All knowledge of 008 shall be disemboweled. The following log details the situation.
Location: TOP SECRET VERIZON MEETING
-------------
008: "BEEDEEP!"
Verizon Officials: ?blah blah blah secret secret blah?
008: "DEEP DEEP BEEP"
008: "BEEDEEP"
Verizon Officials: "You hear something?"
008: "DEP DEEP"."
-------------
Decaffeinated coffee? Kinda like kissing your sister. - Bob Irwin
As far as people yelling at their phones in aggravation of the person not shutting up-- I've found simply switching 'modes' on my Motorola i1000+ w/Nextel works great to interrupt if desired...
;-)
DUH! C'mon, wake-up people..
:wq
If you have a cellphone (from any vendor, with any service provider) you can call any other wired or wireless phone, by dialing its number.
What would be really nice (and which we certainly arent going to see anytime soon) is if the 'direct connect' feature worked that way too - if you werent restricted to talking only to other people with the same type of phone/service.
now when i get drunk like last night i can lose a more expensive cell hpone and go crazy over it because the cost not just the whole fact of not haveing the phone.
You simply change the default mode of DC output if you like. It then routes it to the earpiece and not the speakerphone.
Motorola makes the iDEN phones with the digital radio. Nextel just licenses or buys the tech. So does Southern Co.(Southern Linc), which actually has much better coverage in the Southeast. Mayb be more, but those are the ones I know of around here. Same phones, just different SIM cards.
Not that familiar with the Verizon phones, but this just sounds like lawyers and marketing types fighting over a dumb trademark, which has jack shit to do with the tech, even though the want the consumer to think that, which is why they dumb it down and reduce it to buzzwords like "Direct Connect" and "Instant LINC", which no one has any way of comparing, or even evaluating, since the hard core tech is carefully and jealously guarded, even from developers, usually.
Beats me why this whole American corporate system of rewarding stupidity, ignorance, incompetence, and pure bullshit is considered so "efficient".
--rgb
"Can you hear me now?" Nextel is on the other end saying "yes, we hear you, what have you got for us?"
That's right, everyone knows what a walkie-talkie is. Your marketing drones didn't have to spend a penny to get that concept into the minds of your potential customers. That's because the term has been is continuous general use since dirt. Now you're trying to limit others from using a common term? That would be like trying to (Trade|Sales)Mark the word 'phone'. Sheesh!
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Posability one: Those 'morality' classes are a cover for the 'immoral acts' department you know nothing about.
It appears odd to go so far out of the way to make employees squeeky clean unless to hide the real dirt.
Posability two: Verison "psst hay buddy come look at our new phone. Go ahead take it" Nextel "Um ok.. thanks" uses phone as paperweight on desk completely unaware it is a prototype.
Possability three: Verison planning meeting "Nextel is right how do we get the word out?"
"We sue Nextel on a frivilous clame they spied on our service. News carrys it maybe even a Slashdot or Slate story. We lose but the public will talk for months and we have out advertising plus built in.. that's that term those Linux zellots use? FUD? Automatic Fear Uncertanty and Dout about Nextel before our launch."
Roll 6 sided dice... if number is above three then devide by 2
I don't actually exist.