V710 Hacker Reward Program Unsuccessful

maxofthewell points to the announcement at the top of ""Regretfully, the OBEX hacker's contest for the Motorola v710 was unsuccessful. As of the contest's deadline (January 3, 2005) nobody has stepped forward to claim the prize. Many useful inventions and modifications came out of this effort." Full report here."

Comments

classic

[FinestLittleSpace]

it's brilliant when a post about apathy turns into a (lack of) discussion full of apathy

Holding out?

[Don Giannullo]

With all of the flashes/flexes available for other motorola phones, it seems odd to me that no one has gotten their hands on the oem software yet. or atleast find a way to extract the entire software from the OEM v710 that a certain HoFo user has.

Unfortunatly Common

[MBCook]

Why sell people what they WANT when we can sell them something LIKE it and charge them EXTRA for what they should get in the first place.

This is all too common. People should boycott Verizon (or at least the v710) untill they decide to get their act together. It's easier to teach one phone company a lesson NOW before some genius exec at Cingular finds a way to increase proffits by "borrowing" this idea and soon ALL the phone companies are doing it. It would be much harder to stop then.

Also, in the article there is a note of a class-action suit in the state of Californa against Verizon for their promises on this phone. I'd like everyone who qualifys to sign up (unless of course you LIKE being walked on). That's the only way things will change unfortunatly.

Now for a question: on CDMA networks, the phones have their ID number imbeded in them and you are tied to a specific carrier without reprogramming, right? Are problems like this as common with GSM phones (since in theory it should be easier for customers to switch providers/phones since they can take out the little SIM card)? I know things are supposed to be MUCH better overseas (Japan, Europe, etc) with phone features, but how much difference does GSM/CDMA make here in the states in regard to getting walked on by the phone companies?

Re:Unfortunatly Common

[ssimontis]

All phone companies suck for some reason or another. Verizon is actually rated very high. Still, issues like this make me wonder why people think that. Before this, our family used Sprint. We would roam in our own house. I think this is at least a little better than some things that can happen with phone services.

Re:Unfortunatly Common

[DiscoOnTheSide]

You're right about the CDMA phones being locked to their carriers, although I've heard a little blurb here and there about how in theory they could interoperate. GSM DOES have the capability of being multi-carrier, but in the US the carriers lock the software to their service. However, these are usually bypassable by either A) buy a european/asian GSM phone and just buying a SIM from the carriers, or B) using software found online to get the unlock code for the phone (usually an algorithm based on the IMEI number) which you enter in and *wham* multi-carrier phone. I'm planning on a European tripto Europe in the next year, so I unlocked my Nokia 3650 (T-Mobile) so when I'm over there I'll just buy a prepaid SIM that has so many minutes and I'll still have my phone.

Re:Unfortunatly Common

[DiscoOnTheSide]

err "A European Trip to Europe"... thanks stream of thought and trying to talk to someone while typing a response... be gentile :P

Re:Unfortunatly Common

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

T-Mobile (in the US) will unlock phones after you have had service for 90 days if your account is current.

Re:Unfortunatly Common

[Anonymous Coward]

That's pretty cool. Do that say that in writing?

Re:Unfortunatly Common

[maokh]

Yes, CDMA phones can be moved to other carriers. But this is for voice alone. When you start talking about features such as Picture/video Mail, WAP browsing, Push-To-Talk services, Downloadable Games, and Ringtones, then you start running into problems.

In order to bring, say a SprintPCS CDMA phone to Verizon CDMA, you will need to obtain something called a Master Subsidy Lock code or MSL. This code is required for phone programming. This can actually be found by using bitpim and sifting through binary files stored on the handset's file system. A pain...but possible with USB cable.

Now assuming you could find a rep stupid enough to activate this phone. Countless people have tried this in failed, only one or two people I know have actually done this. This through social engineering or them having access to the provisioning system to do so. Ok, so after all this hell, you are left with a voice phone. No data. Yippie.

CDMA carriers customize their phone's firmware to meet their needs. One major difference being, SprintPCS uses J2ME and Verizon uses BREW. A lot of data service offerings are also heavily tailored for specific environments.

With no SIM, and fundimental differences between carriers, you will simply end up with a crippled piece of junk. And I bet you the "free phone" would have more features than that.

The CDMA spec actually has something for SIM-like functionality, but this has really only been popular in asia. Currently, no US carriers have deployed the technology. Very little benefit..honestly.

So why give people the ability to take their phones to the other carrier? Sprint and Verizon eat it when you purchase a phone -- they subsidize the price of handsets. And thats why a Master Subsidy Lock is in place.

Lastly, this lawsuit against Verizon is pure silliness. Lets see here, Verizon lets you return your handset after 15-30 days if it does not work out -- no questions asked. If you do not like their bluetooth offering, return the phone. How can you sue over that? Maybe OBEX and OPP are buggy? These types of firmware lockouts happen all the time due to pressing release dates and buggy features.

Re:Unfortunatly Common

[CarrionBird]

GSM phones are often SIM locked to one carrier.That can be hacked around and the carriers don't care. There can be problems with that because it seems that if your phones IMEI number is not programmed into thier system, you dont get OTA updates properly . (OTA updates are for your phones preferred/allowed list of towers, important if you're on a free roaming plan)

What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Regretfully, the OBEX hacker's contest for the Motorola v710 was unsuccessful. [...] Many useful inventions and modifications came out of this effort.

If "many useful inventions and modifications came out of this effort", then why are they branding it as unsuccessful?

Unfortunate - but did keep word

[bblazer]

I was one of the donators. It is unfortunate that no hacks were found in the time allotted. One good thing is that the organizer did keep his word and returned the donations. I got mine back yesterday.

Re:Unfortunate - but did keep word

[archeopterix]

I was one of the donators. It is unfortunate that no hacks were found in the time allotted. One good thing is that the organizer did keep his word and returned the donations. I got mine back yesterday.

Yes, it's good that they kept their promises, however it would be funny if this money was used to buy some big red "VERIZON SELLS CRIPPLED PHONES!!!" ads. Just an idea for whoever sets up the next similar challenge :)

Interoperability

[thestjohn]

I was under the impression that if handsets from competing networks used the same standard, then technically their handsets should interoperate between the networks. But then that's over here in the uk, where we only have one 3G standard. From what I can see, US citizens get CDMA (which is only 2.5G), CDMA2000, and UMTS, which is the standard we use over here I think. I work in mobile phone repair, and I've got an unlocked 3G phone to work on a 3G network other than it's parent company. What technical issues prevent you guys from doing it?

aaah

[thestjohn]

Just read a little more. Wasn't aware that simcard technology isn't being used in these phones. That certainly makes it difficult to remove the network lock. Damn, you guys have it bad over there for phones. You get screwed on prices, coverage, and now services it seems.