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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."
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.
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.
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
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..
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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.
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.
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?
I believe this product is near its release date, which means that it is probably out in the hands of reps and has been shown to customers. That means that there are a number of the prototypes in a reasonably large number of hands. I'm sure that these phones are demonstrated to customers under NDA. I find it simple to believe that over the course of a number of demonstrations, a few phones can go missing.
Now, if Nextel is aware that this is not a released product, and aware that these are not under any sort of public testing, then they can be found guilty of knowingly possessing stolen property.
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.
It's not just a walkie-talkie replacement. You can use them for phone service, web browsing, etc, etc. All in one device, which aside from anything else certainly makes the cancer-critics a little happier. (and me, since I would have to carry more stuff)
By the way, another really heavy user of Nextel service is the government. In my agency, most of the people are field-based and roving, so Nextels are next to invaluable. Not to mention that quite a few people I know have Nextels for personal use, because they've offered reasonably good family plans. Good for field trips, and keeping in touch with your teenager kids - who then use it to keep in touch with each other.
I'll agree that a Nextel is a little more expensive, though. But when you want more services, you do indeed pay for them.
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 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.
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.
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