Settlement Good News for MotorolaV710 Owners

bluebanzai writes "When hordes of people bought up the Motorola V710 upon its release a year ago, Slashdot readers may remember many impressive features including the cutting edge Bluetooth features (picture/mp3 transfer, wireless syncing) as described on Motorola's website. However, when used with the popular Verizon Wireless cell phone service provider, many Bluetooth features were sadly crippled (apart from a wireless headset) because OBEX features had been purposely disabled by Verizon. Hundreds of people donated to a hacker rewards program to unlock the full features of the phone to the tune of $3000, but was never fully successful. Well, one year later, the Los Angeles Superior Court (PDF Warning) and Verizon have announced the initial steps of a Class Action Lawsuit that appears to be influenced by the user community allowing everyone who bought it before the start of 2005 a few options for compensation--including a refund up to the purchase price of another phone which, interestingly enough, is a lot easier to hack."

Comments

How about...

[aussie_a]

including a refund up to the purchase price of another phone which, interestingly enough, is a lot easier to hack.

How about Verizon just stop crippling their customers and unlock the locked features?

Re:How about...

[meringuoid]

How about Verizon just stop crippling their customers and unlock the locked features?

If they did that, then you could easily create your own wallpapers and mp3 ringtones on your PC and transfer them to your telephone by Bluetooth. This is obviously wrong, and the sort of thing only pirates would do. Therefore the phone company locks down the features, and you can then pay a modest sum of money for professionally-created multimedia products of much better quality. Isn't the Company great, looking out for you like that?

Re:How about...

[maxwell demon]

How about Verizon just stop crippling their customers and unlock the locked features?

They don't just cripple the phones, they also cripple their customers? I didn't know that they are that bad ... :-)

Re:Cutting edge?

[WhoDey]

I've never met anyone with a phone that has cut-down features either.

Try closing the open /. window and walking out of your house. You'd be amazed what you learn when you meet actual people.

thats the problem with US phone networks

[riflemann]

This seems to be a unique problem to US mobile phone markets. Why the hell do they require the phone company's own phone?

In any other part of the world, you buy your own phone from wherever you choose (even another country) and just plug in a sim card from your chosen provider and it just works.

If any provier here tried to pull those tricks, the market would take care of the problem very quickly.

Is GSM actually getting any foothold in the US market?

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[ianbnet]

This is not so much a uniquely US problem, as a uniquely Verizon problem. Their CDMA network is huge, but T-Mobile and Cingular are just two examples of nationwide GSM networks, complete with SIM-unlocked phones. Verizon has great coverage across the US, but for the technically inclined or anyone wanting "cutting edge," they're rarely the best choice, with outdated, locked phones and limited, expensive data capabilities.

Still, it's great to see them getting their due. Their attempt to lock up basic features in the US market is ridiculous, and hopefully this practice will end soon.

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[ForestGrump]

Yes, GSM is getting a foothold in the US market. I myself have been with Cingular/ATT (both GSM) for almost 5 years now.

Like CDMA carriers, GSM isn't problem free.

For example, if you buy a GSM phone, it is most likely locked to the carrier you bought it from. Why do they do this? Because most phones are either "free" or "discountted" with the signing of a contract.

Now, I figure they lock phones for 3 purposes:
1. If your family member destroys their phone somehow, your "locked" phone won't work because they have a different carrier. Thus, they'll be forced to buy a new phone.
2. So you can pay their roaming/international charges when you travel (because a locally bought SIM doesn't work on the locked phone).
3. Profit!

Thankfully, unlock codes/reflashing can easily be done if you know where to find a code calculator, or willing to buy a $10 data cable.

Grump
Unlocked Siemens S40, Mot V400.
Unlocked half my family's nokia phones.

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[dan the person]

Where is "here"?

Doesn't seem quite so bad, but they still do annoying things in the UK.

IE. you get a free phone from vodafone, it is locked to the vodafone network so you have to pay 10 quid down the local corner shop to get it unlocked if you want to use it on another network.

Then vodafone put firmware on it that maps various function keys to automatically launch the browser and go to their "live!" website, and you can't map the button to more useful functions, e.g. launch new txt msg.

Of course you can always pay full retail for non-network branded phone and just put your sim in that.

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[Adlopa]

Well, that's not strictly true. In the UK, you have two choices -- 1) 'buy' a phone from a provider or 2) from the manufacturer. In the case of 1), phones are sold at much, much less than the manufacturer's RRP but you're forced to sign up to a 12 month contract with the provider. The phone is also locked to that provider and another provider's SIM won't work. Essentially, the phone's low cost is subsidised by your 12 month subscription. Once the contract is up, you can often get the provider to 'unlock' the phone for use with any provider's SIM for free or a small fee. Or, you can go to a back street unlocking shop at any time and pay around £10 for them to unlock it. With 2),you pay the full RRP, which is not inconsiderable for a mobile phone. The phone is free for use with any SIM though. Oh and most UK providers customise the phone's interface to suit their particular service, but I'm not aware of any case where features were disabled -- they're merely presented differently.

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[Derlum]

Verizon has great coverage across the US, but for the technically inclined or anyone wanting "cutting edge," they're rarely the best choice, with outdated, locked phones and limited, expensive data capabilities.

    Not true at all. I work for a wireless engineering firm in the DC area and have done quite a bit of work with a wide range of cellular equipment from all carriers. Verizon's EV-DO data service with a burst max of 2.4Mbps is the absolute best available right now, period. It will likely continue to be so even after Cingular rolls out UMTS (burst max 2.3Mbps). Only when Cingular starts applying the system software upgrade to go to HSPDA (8-10Mbps) will they stand a chance of being the best mobile data service, but Verizon could easily be well on their way to EV-DV by then. And at $60/mo. for a service on which I've personally seen sustained data rates of 700-800kbps (at 80mph no less), I wouldn't call it expensive either. On top of that, Verizon's data service gives you an open public IP address, while Cingular firewalls their data customers without exception.
    Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to put Verizon on a pedestal. They've got plenty of problems. I'm a v710 owner and the Bluetooth crippling issue is absolutely ridiculous. I fully intend to be a member of the class action settlement. But I wanted to clarify that poor choice of phones != bad service.

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[karnal]

The way your sig played into your comment was priceless:


Grump
Unlocked Siemens S40, Mot V400.
Unlocked half my family's nokia phones.
--
still looking for a wife...

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[SilverMane69]

Just a comment:

Only the major US carriers use "locked phones", smaller regional carriers can't afford to pay the manufacturers to lock their phones. (These fees also include the special logos, menus, and apps) So, if you purchase a GSM phone (CDMA is another story) from one of these small guys, odds are that it won't be sim locked. This means you can use it with any service provider. No hacks required. The only real drawback is that these small carriers don't always carry the latest tech due to cost. As for CDMA, I understand they are moving the tech towards using a chip similar to a SIM. Maybe one day you will be able to move from CDMA to GSM and back simply by swapping a chip.

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[plover]

the V3 RAZR is a great phone,

I've had one for a few months now, and I'm at least as disappointed with it as my buddy is with his Verizon V710. First, and most on-topic with this discussion, the bluetooth stack is incredibly buggy! If I try to use OBEX to browse its files, I can sometimes get files in and out of the phone, and sometimes not. And virtually any time I use OBEX or connect from any Windows XP machine (three different machines, three different manufacturer's Bluetooth devices) the Bluetooth on the phone goes south, and it will refuse to even acknowledge a headset afterwards. I need to pull and replace the battery to get it to come back.

And my complaints go much further. The phone does not support OBEX browsing of other phones (like my Sony-Ericsson T637 could do.) It does not support 24/7 discoverability, restricting it to 60 seconds max. It does not support an "advanced headset profile" (again like the T637) where it doesn't establish the Bluetooth headset connection until a call is made, allowing me to use Bluetooth networking even in the presence of a powered up headset. That's a very important feature with a hands-free car kit. Overall, bluetooth functionality on this phone is on a par with the V710 - a lot of promise, but nothing delivered.

And then it suffers from all the other endemic Motorola problems. It has the world's worst address book application, which cannot handle the simple task of storing multiple numbers per contact, instead creating new contacts for each number. It also suffers from a byzantine one-touch speed dial reconfiguration mechanism. Their whole speed dial thing is still based on the "order" in which numbers are stored, so if you want to change speed dials you have to first renumber the old record, then renumber the new record into its place. And it takes it about a minute to boot -- I have no idea what can be taking it so long. Finally, even though the phone is perfectly capable of shooting video, (there are mods to turn it on) it's not available out of the box.

There are some really good features on the phone though that I do like: battery life is very, very good. Audio quality is excellent. The camera is a crisp 640x480. Voice dial recognition has impressive performance, especially in the noisy environment of my car using the handsfree kit. And of course it's small and light. But overall, it's far short of a "great" phone. I was much happier with my T637.

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[d99-sbr]

Stolen GSM phones can be locked globally through their IMEI number. However I would assume that most stolen phones are never reported. Additionally, at least some older phones allow this number to be changed.

The REAL winners

[Anonymous Coward]

are the lawyers with (fta) 6.3 million dollars + 60k expenses

seems everyday to a lawyer is like winning the lottery except you win every time !
now all they need to decide is which to buy , a speedboat or a Lear jet..hmmmm decisions decisions

Re:The REAL winners

[squiggleslash]

Highly amusing really, in many ways. This is actually a consumer-relations fiasco, not a legal fiasco, but as many businesses purposefully make their products and services more complex, as they try to squeeze more revenues while hoping the customer will not know better, they lose sight of the whole "keeping your customers happy" thing. It's not always deliberate on their part, it's just if your primary attitude is "How can we squeeze a little more money from a supposedly "extra" service without our customers realising until they've signed up", then you already have a customer-hostile attitude and it's going to be obvious however much money you invest in feel-good advertising, friendly corporate logos, and determining whether to have your sales and CS reps greet customers with "MobileMegaCom, how can I help you?" or "On behalf of MobileMegaCom, I'd like to wish you a very fine morning, what can WE do to make YOUR life more pleasurable, right now?"

Money that used to be spent on marketing and customer service gurus is now being spent, ten fold, on lawyers to handle extremely disgruntled customers, who are rarely, in their entirety, the complete techno-illiterates these companies assume they are.

Unfortunately, with so many companies either ex-monopolies or attempting to work in such a mode, for the most part legal threats are becoming the only real way customers can voice their dissatisfaction and expect changes.

I hate telephone companies, or at least I hate their marketing departments. They're all dishonest. They all lie about charges, and they lobby the FCC to give them get-outs when they do. They always try to push contracts that are absurdly long. They pretend they're selling one thing (as in this case) when they're actually selling something lesser. They push contracts that are inherently unfair and one-sided. (No, it doesn't take two years to recover a phone subsidy, indeed with tariffs usually around $50 a month, it usually barely takes two months. More to the point, if the issue is subsidies, why don't you just let early cancellers return their subsidized phones, in working condition, if they want to cancel before the end of the contract? And why not make it easy for those who already have compatable equipment to sign up on a month-to-month basis, maybe even with - *gasp* a discounted talk plan given they've just saved you your precious subsidy - I'll tell you why, because the idea the two year contracts have anything to do with subsidies is complete and total bullshit.)

I'd like to think some kind of free-market darwinism will fix this. It's hard to tell. Mobile carriers are so varied in quality that people will shun the best, most reasonable, because, for example, it has 1900MHz licenses and thus, through no fault of its own, has poorer indoor coverage. So, ultimately, people are going to resort to lawsuits to fix these issues. In this case, I say good luck to the lawyers. Once the operators start acting decently again, maybe I'll start whining about frivilous lawsuits, but the big operators are not doing so, so screw 'em, and throw every complaint they're not prepared to deal with honourably back at 'em in court.

And if it makes a few lawyers rich, that's great. If someone's doing a public service, I don't have a problem with them earning money from it.

Verizon is horrible about this

[fmwap]

Verizon has consistantly pissed me off since I got their service, they've killed Kannel on their network, upgraded to prevent hacking the GetItNow service, and the only way to add custom anything is to locate an impossible to find cable & hack it using BitPim

Sure, you CAN add custom photos and ringtones, which I might do if I had to pay ONCE for, but Verizon charges a monthly fee just for having them on your phone. It's a blatent ripoff and I got tired of being fucked by Verizon.

I don't have any input on them crippling bluetooth, but frankly it doesn't suprise me. This company is a shit providor and I don't understand why anyone has their service. I'm sure they will offer better Bluetooth enabled devices, with many new features, as long as you pay X amount per month to have them enabled, and a fee for using them, and the fee for airtime, and the activation fee, and ...

Re:Verizon is horrible about this

[ivan256]

Subscription is where you pay a fixed fee for a service.

We're talking about keeping an image you created on your screen. It's not like they're providing new images, installing images, or changing even a single bit in any way as they take your fee every month. Not deleting data that you don't own off of a device that you don't own for a fee is extortion.

Or do you think that paying "protection money" to the guy who cleans the trash out of the alley behind your business in order to continue to have windows that are in one piece is "subscription" too?

I got the mailling

[bblazer]

I bought 2 of these phones from Verizon and was so upset with the situation I cancelled the service even-though I had to eat the cancellation fee. In the settlement mailing there are 3 options.

1) Current Verizon customers that want to keep the phone and the service may get a $25 credit to their bill.

2) Current customers who want to keep their service but not their phone may send it in for a refund.

3) Customers who cancelled their service and paid the cancellation fee can get a refund of the fee.

I am not sure why they just don't enable OBEX?! That is what everyone wanted in the first place.

Fix the Blackberry please

[The Mutant]

I've got a Blackberry 7100t, and it supposedly has Bluetooth. But the OBEX implementation is crippled as well, and only supports headsets.

I've heard that RIM did this because of security implications; maybe so. But it said Bluetooth on the box, not partial Bluetooth.

Re:Fix the Blackberry please

[anothy]

and it has bluetooth, not partial bluetooth. unless it listed specific bluetooth profiles that it doesn't have, there's no issue with the labeling here. what, you're upset that it doesn't implement all the profiles? like, um, the mouse one? yeah! my phone can't act as a mouse, clearly the bluetooth is crippled!

and yes, of course things like OBEX are better fits than the mouse profile. but "bluetooth" does not inherently imply any given set of profiles. if you wanted a specific capability, you should have asked for it, or bought a product specifically labeled to have it.

Nice, weak microphone addressed by Lameware cool

[WarmNoodles]

I own a V710, and Beside the FA's observation that lameware nerfed Bluetooth functionality, my main complaint is that people can not hear me when I use the device.
The complaint was personally confirmed as a common grief experienced by V710 Verizon phone users.
The solution which did not work was to reset the phone using the stencil.
Glad I'll be able to get something for the piece of junk.
I stopped using the phone about 6 months ago due the bad microphone sound quality.
I would pick the 3rd option on the claim form. I hope they offer a phone of equivalent function and price/value.
The first claim form option was for $25 which in no way near covers the $430 cost of the junk phone.
Another complaint is that when I purchased a replacement, Verizon had no way of transferring Contact phone #'s to another phone.
--
Avian flu dosen't kill people, people kill people.

This is still bogus...

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Why don't they just enable OBEX file transfer, syncing and basically give you all features of a phone with bluetooth?? Why should they have to hack the replacement phone either?? Verizion is just screwed up on a great many things. Why must I pay 79 bucks or even 59 for 1XRTT or even EVDO?? Can't they have a unlimited plan that's a little more economical? How come I can get a GPRS connection via T-Mobile for HALF of Verizon's 1XRTT?? If they would just look at the POTENTIAL market, they could definitely lower thier price.

Also,with regards to EVDO, they SHOULD allow you to plug the card into that switch unit(forget the name of it). IF Verizon did this, then some people just might use this as thier ONLY connection to the web. When at home, plug it into the switch, when on the road, take another switch or just plug it into the laptop. Verizon could make TONS of cash if they were to do this, however they want to FORCE you to do things their way because they are afraid the network may not be able to handle it or some other stupid reason.

Re:This is still bogus...

[mr_rattles]

Syncing does work with the most recent firmware on the V710. With a small property file hack you can get syncing to work with iSync in OS X as well.

See this article:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050 501151747917

I wish I was that lucky

[Tidal Flame]

I was just in Japan for two weeks, and everyone there over the age of 5 has a really awesome cell phone. Being a techie, I got a bit jealous, so I decided I'd buy a new one when I got back. I needed to switch providers anyway as my old provider was really ripping me off.

So, I get back, read up on providers and such. I eventually decided that Virgin Mobile worked best for me, since I don't use my cell phone a whole lot but do find it a useful gadget. Their rates are pretty good for people who don't need to use their cell phones every day.

Now, here's where I screwed up: I did a Google for "Virgin Mobile" to see what kind of features the plan offered. This of course brought up the Virgin Mobile USA website. I live in Canada. There's no obvious indication on the site that it's the Virgin Mobile USA site, so I figured it was just a general Virgin Mobile site. These days most corporate sites redirect you to the appropriate page based on where your IP is located anyway, right?

So I'm looking at the features and I see that they have internet access and instant messenger support, among other things. So I go out and buy a phone (Audiovox CDM8910). Not a top of the line model, but it's got a camera, superphonic ringtones, and all that. Pretty nice, I think.

Of course, to my horror, when I open the package there is no data cable. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Instead, I discover, Virgin wants me to pay 50 cents per picture to get my pictures off of the phone, up to $4 per ringtone to download new ringtones (normally I wouldn't mind, but the phone's default selection is pathetic - none of them are suitable for anything, really), and up to $2 per picture to download new "wallpapers." Yeah right!

It is possible to purchase a data cable for this phone, and I've done so. The problem is that there's no software that really supports the phone, and of course the phone's firmware is completely undocumented... so I CAN get my pictures and upload new ringtones without paying Virgin's outrageous fees, but because of the shoddy, undocumented firmware, there's a good chance I could completely wreck my phone in the process. I doubt I'd have an easy time of getting a replacement, either...

Honestly, the cell phone market in North America is absolutely pathetic. I'm sick of being locked in by providers and being promised features that I don't receive. To be fair, I should have been more careful about my research in this case, but I'm sure several Slashdotters have experienced similar letdowns with cell phones. A lot of people seemed to think that the "Cell Phone User's Bill of Rights" was ridiculous. Maybe it was. But we all know that when North American cell phone providers aren't outright lying to their customers, they're crippling the phones they provide so that the only way to make use of all of the technology in the phone you buy is to pay outrageous fees.

Re:I wish I was that lucky

[indytx]

But we all know that when North American cell phone providers aren't outright lying to their customers, they're crippling the phones they provide so that the only way to make use of all of the technology in the phone you buy is to pay outrageous fees.

This is both true AND inaccurate. It is true because you do get charged outrageous fees for ringtones, wallpapers, etc. However, it is inaccurate because, in Europe, callers pay to make phone calls to a mobile phone. Try calling a European mobile phone from the US. You'll be astounded just how expensive it is. Someone has to pay for all those fancy services. In Europe, it's the caller. Europeans can send SMS messages for 5-10 cents, and those cost nothing for them to receive.

If I call from Belgium with a French SIM card, I'm roaming. If I call to Belgium with a French SIM card, I pay more. Try comparing a service mape from a large, U.S. mobile provider to what is available in Europe. You'll be shocked. Also, European mobile carriers cannot bundle phones with mobile contracts.

It is simply different in the U.S. Americans can talk much more on their mobile phones because it is much more economical to do so. Most Americans would rather have cheap minutes than gee-whiz features that don't add much value to the average consumer. If you want the gee-whiz features, order a GSM phone, pay the full, unsubsidized price, and get a contract with Cingular. Case closed.

Re:CDMA and SIM card question

[tomreagan]

i realize that the current market is setup (with phone subsidies) so the carriers have incentive to keep you from using phones with another carrier.
but is there any technological barrier? is there any reason that cdma cell phones couldn't be paired with SIM cards?

no, there is no technological barrier. further, some people believe that the importance of supporting next-generation provisioning and wi-fi/3g roaming will lead more of the carriers to support gsm on their networks. you could easily support the gsm provisioning/billing/roaming features on top of a cdma transport. in fact, i believe that some cdma phones with gsm/tdma chipsets built-in for global roaming have been announced/discussed.

it will be interesting to see how long verizon can maintain this technological provincialism. based on their dominance in the marketplace, i would imagine they'll be able to maintain for some time.

Greed IS Verizon's business model

[digitaldc]

"Q. Well, these features are available in phones from many other carriers, and people feel cheated.
A. Verizon does business unlike any other carrier, and we make no apologies for that. ... [Those features] don't work with our business model. Every customer is certainly entitled to their own feelings. "

'we make no apologies for that' =Translation= We do what we want, when we want, and you do not matter.
'don't work with our business model' =Translation= It is much more profitable for us this way
'Every customer is certainly entitled to their own feelings.' =Translation= F You!!!

T-Mobile and Motorola

[qazwart]

I got my cell service from T-Mobile. Not only are they a GSM provider (and I can even get a phone from them that works outside of the U.S.), but they don't disable their Bluetooth at all.

I am fully able to transfer files back and forth between my computer and my Motorola RAZR phone. I even sync my addressbook between my phone and my computer (and it was one of the big reasons I went T-Mobile and bought this particular phone).

I bet you could probably go to Japan, get one of those ultra-cool phones they have there, then use it with T-Mobile in the U.S.

BTW, I think it is a very bad sign that the U.S. is no longer the first country to get the latest technilogical doodads. Heck, we're not even one of the first. A lot of the really high tech stuff never even hits the U.S. markets. Many tech firms are beginning to treat us like a third world market. It's not just cell phones, but video game consoles, and even watches.

Re:T-Mobile and Motorola

[jhsiao]

Oh please. The reason we're being treated as a third world country in tech is because the majority of folks in the US won't buy anything until it's at third world prices...

Do you shop at Walmart, Target, Old Navy? Do you scour fatwallet or slickdeals? Do you shop for the cheapest broadband service? Well, why then would a manufacturer waste storeshelf space on really expensive stuff when you only buy cheap crap?

Showing prices after mailin rebates work in the US for a reason...because most people focus on price. Price at any cost. Maybe not you, maybe not me, but the majority of Americans, yes. Remember, this is the home of the Big Gulp and Costco. Where more=cheaper=better.

So if you're one of the rare Americans that buy high-quality stuff at high prices, then you shouldn't care that Verizon or Cingular doesn't offer some high-end phones. Go and buy your Bang and Olfsen CD case. Nor should you care that some Japanese import game isn't available in the US. You just buy them from some of the many numerous online vendors that sell them. And you buy your phone without the subsidy lock or your import PS2 without the discounts that come with volume. But since you don't care about price, you'll pay that right?

Until the market starts buying expensive phones (which the manufacturers would love to sell, by the way), the carriers won't waste the effort trying to sell them. When you see regular Americans (not early adopters) routinely pay $400 for a phone, carriers will be happy to offer that model.

You want to know where we beat virtually everyone else in the modern world? Gasoline prices (no taxes), SUV choices (cheap gas), home square footage (suburb living), grain production (subsidized farming). Folks paying $10/gallon find it annoying we complain so loudly about $3/gallon.

Do you really feel that bad that your fellow Americans don't have the option to buy some phone that you like? Or are you really upset that the majority of Americans don't feel as passionate about tech as you do and so you can't get a discount on your niche-market phone?

Welcome to slashdot.

steps to profit (for lawyers only)

[jurt1235]

Step 1: Advise company to alter features in such a way that they can make more profit, and let them pay you.
Step 2: Find group of disgruntled customers and file class action suit, and let them pay you.
Step 3: Profit from step 1 & 2, with in step 2 the added bonus of a percentage of the settlement.

Re:Cutting edge?

[Jozer99]

Its really not a new phone anymore, considering how fast the phone market moves. And you are right, OBEX is not really cutting edge, it is pretty much a standard feature that was removed.

Sue T-Mobile too!

[LinuxGeekMobile]

The Sidek!ck II from T-Mobile is horribly hobbled compared to it's original form, the Danger HipTop2. T-Mobile locks out any form of transfer of ringtones, whether from the end-user or a third-party company. The only way to install any is through their "catalog" application... the vast majority of which are "ghetto". They do the same with applications. Many, many apps are available for this device, but you're limited to about 15 from their catalog, many of which are beta quality at best and poorly maintained. No refunds for your alarm clock app when it doesn't work. Now if you live in Canada, you have multiple providers supporting this device, who do not lock it down in this manner. Unfortunately, T-Mobile seems to have an exclusivity contract with Danger (the company that designed the device and provides the back-end) in the U.S.

The MONOPOLY industry.

[hkmwbz]

I don't know why your comment was mostly moderated funny. It is actually very insightful, and explains exactly how this things works.

Basically, we have an industry which makes loads of cash by preventing their customers from using technology to make things cheaper and more efficient. It is in the industry's interest to make sure that we download expensive ring tones and backgrounds from them, rather than simply using an MP3 or an image downloaded from the web.

In other words: This industry artificially maintains its profits by using what I consider to be highly immoral methods. If they did not have this choke hold on the market, the industry would shrink a lot and lots of people (investors, content owners...) would probably lose a whole lot of money.

It is almost like a cartel where various companies (content owners, mobile makers, etc.) get together to agree on how to squeeze the most money out of people and maximizing their own profits. Something like price fixing.

I am kind of wondering why no mobile maker has released a phone which lets the user do anything. Do they depend on content owners and network operators to make money?

Re:The MONOPOLY industry.

[Eunuchswear]

Being a yurpeen I don't understand this bit:

The phone would not sell because the carriers would not activate it for you because it is not one of their phones.

Where I come from the carrier doesn't "activate" the phone. I just bung my SIM chip in and use it.

Isn't it funny that your free market has produced monopolies that screw the customer and our regulated one has produced competition?

Re:The MONOPOLY industry.

[Rude Turnip]

"Isn't it funny that your free market has produced monopolies that screw the customer and our regulated one has produced competition?"

I would say you're the one with the free market, my friend. I've been saying it for years..."a free market is a regulated market" (but not necessarily the reverse case).

Case in point? The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) which regulates our stock markets. You would never have gotten the general public investing in the stock market like it does today without an oversight committee to prevent the abuses of the 19th & early 20th centuries. Yes, you get an Enron or Worldcom now and then, but a long time ago, you'd never get the transparency that you get today to find those problems in the first place.

OBEX? Feh, Verizon disables Transfer from T-Flash!

[Dr. Ion]

First, the v710 never had OBEX support. Verizon never took it out, because it simply Wasn't There! There is no hack to enable it, because there is no OBEX code in the box. Their mistake, as explained in the lawsuit, was to mislead customers into thinking they would get something like OBEX. (Verizon does, however, disable Dial-Up Networking via Bluetooth.)

Most importantly, the latest version of the v710 software from Verizon disables the other free transport -- Transflash. You can no longer copy wallpaper and ringtones (or anything at all) from the flash card to the phone. You can't copy your own pictures from the phone internal memory to the card either!

Early v710 phones from Verizon did have this feature. In fact, it can be re-enabled by some well-published hacks. Highly Recommended.

The e815 phone, of course, does have OBEX which can be re-enabled through more well-published hacks.

Verizon also doesn't publish the more significant differences between the e815 and v710, listing only "VCast" as a feature.

• 40MB of memory vs 10MB
  
• Much faster processor
  
• Longer battery life (bigger capacity battery)
  
• Better keypad
  
• Nicer camera (1.3 vs 1.2MP, but also just better in general)
  
• OBEX can be re-enabled
  
• EvDO dial-up networking
  
• Bluetooth calendar/Contact sync
  
• Faster charger in the box.
  
• Missing belt-clip in the box (e815 charges $17 extra for the same clip)
  

Re:Yay Free Market Capialism!

[squiggleslash]

Personal mobility is a consumer freedoms thing, I suspect the law requiring it has much more to do with protecting consumer freedoms and preventing anti-competitive behaviour than it does supporting GSM. After all, Qualcomm does ship a version of IS-95 that supports personal mobility too.

The fact that US CDMA phones can interoperate with AMPS networks is ultimately both its advantage and its crux. Qualcomm could have made IS-95 interoperable with GSM. They could have, as the UMTS people did, produced IS-95 as GSM with a different air interface. That would have made it a genuine upgrade for virtually everyone, and the debates between the two camps would have been non-existant. Qualcomm, however, felt they needed to make CDMA more attractive to US cellular operators, who were after a drop-in replacement for AMPS, and most of whom were looking at D-AMPS (IS-136) as that replacement. As a result, they built this system that, essentially, uses a network model only fractionally more advanced and just as limited as the 1970s AMPS model. The results were pretty horrible for end users, and GSM remains a superior solution for most mobile users (even if not necessarily network operators), giving them far more freedom and far more advanced features.

Qualcomm's complaints that GSM gets special treatment are generally misleading. You can point to what you heard from a GSMA rep, but frankly, it doesn't make any sense on any level. The types of CDMA that are used where such governments are making such mandates do support personal mobility. So the rep is plain wrong. And Qualcomm's lying if it's claiming this is evidence of a giant conspiracy against it. Qualcomm, of course, has lobbied the US government to lobby for, and sometimes even mandate, IS-95 in various places. It's largely been unsuccessful, though some of our current political problems with China date back to the Clinton administration trying to push IS-95 on the Chinese, who in turn would use it as a bargaining chip for numerous unrelated issues.

I really wish the FUD and shilling campaigns would stop, and Qualcomm and ETSI would work together on a common standard. I think most US operators, right now, with their networks the way they are, would be delighted if they could run UMTS with a CDMA (rather than WCDMA) air interface layer. I think most users would be better off with this too. The CDMA air interface is a nice thing, the IS-95 network isn't. GSM/UMTS is a wonderful thing, but the air interface technology could do with improvement. It's difficult to see why this hasn't happened yet.