Microsoft Deal Limits Verizon MP3 Phones

An anonymous reader writes "PCSIntel is reporting that the new VCast music system by Verizon may not be quite as positive as users were led to believe. Claims were made that the new software for this service would disable the ability to play MP3s on these phones. It turns out that the ability to play MP3s still exists but only because the software first converts it to the WMA format. This conversion, however, is not available for phones on Mac or Linux, leaving these customers unable to play MP3s."

Comments

Fuck M$

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet again Micro$oft fucks the computing public.

Re:Fuck M$

[EvilNTUser]

"Yet again Micro$oft fucks the computing public."

More like the public fucks itself. This wouldn't even be an issue unless everyone in the US accepted the thought of phones as something the carrier provides.

Microsoft is indeed evil for asking, but this is as stupid as allowing your ISP to force you to use computers and software they provide, yet no one seems to be bothered enough to do something about it. You get what you deserve.

Re:Fuck M$

[Professor_UNIX]

This wouldn't even be an issue unless everyone in the US accepted the thought of phones as something the carrier provides.

Even if you didn't have to buy a new phone when switching carriers they'd still probably cripple it with their own software version as soon as you connect to their network whether you want it or not. If it isn't an automatic upload then they'll simply say you can't use that phone on the network until you take it in and have the firmware updated to an authorized version to prevent "hacking" or some other nonsense argument. In the end we all know it's really about profit more than anything.

Re:Fuck M$

[Carthag]

That would never fly in Denmark, we have laws on anticompetitive behaviour here ;)

Re:Fuck M$

[einexile]

(Real flamebait there, stating the obvious about a company most people find either loathesome or embarrassing. To say nothing of the readership here. That'll teach him not to start the thread with a tired joke.)

Be thankful the DRM effort is spearheaded by folks who haven't a clue how creepy their dystopian jargon sounds to everyday people. Biggest installed userbase for anything since the internal combustion engine, and they haven't figured out that consumers who have the time and patience for this will devote them to something else.

License migration, for Christ's sake. I want to listen to music on my cellphone.

That MS even cares about your phone demonstrates that their efforts remain comfortably misdirected. Surely the next step in this terrifying slippery slope is to crack down on the games we have installed on our iPods.

Heavens.

Or maybe I'm just one of those consumers directing his time and patience to something else, and this trojan horse will live to bite us all on the ass - just in time, I'm sure, for no one to remember what cellphones and iPods were.

Re:Fuck M$

[Anonymous Coward]

(Friend supplied answer)
The whole turning off the MP3 features of the chip inside the phone is not purely a Verizon call. This is mostly a RIAA and Microsoft idea. The Qualcomm IC supports hardware MP3 but one of the conditions for bringing to life the VCast Music Store was to turn this feature off. A lot of people will ask, "why?" And to that you will get absolutly no good answer, hell people make decisions everyday that I don't like/understand. Should we go witht he flow? Nah, if you miss your MP3 functions that badly then just ask them to FRU (field replacement unit) you a v04 phone.

Also your comment about how you would like hardware portability, please feel free to ask Verizon about any phone you'd like and their CSRs will be more than happy to provide you with a phone with equal features that works on the Verizon network. (Or something like that) As far as why networks won't allow cross hardware? Well crap that would mean storing a huge collection of firmware programs that are all different platforms. Hell I know we have BREW and J2ME and all that good abstraction stuff, but core features don't use that stuff. The demands on the already overworked three India guys that program all the functions in Verizon phones would kill them. It would be just a nightmare to try and support every single stinking phone. Hardware vendors aren't really making phones to be eaiser for the developer, I know hard to believe.

(My two cents)
At at rate... Please people stop using your phone as a freaking MP3/WMA/whatever player. Cell phones have quickly become a jack of all trades but a master of jack crap. If you really want an MP3 player go get an iPod or hell be retro and get a CD-player. I carry my phone with me and my iPod shuffle, both small enough not to be a cumbersome duo. This whole story is just some rant at something that really should just be a moot point, stop using your phone for this crap, stop buying into this crap, and you'll eventually not have to worry about this crap.

Slackjustyb (PS: Someone very close to me works as a CSR at Verizon. Who did help in some of my post, if that should mean anything to anybody.)

Re:Fuck M$

[EvilNTUser]

"As far as why networks won't allow cross hardware? Well crap that would mean storing a huge collection of firmware programs that are all different platforms. Hell I know we have BREW and J2ME and all that good abstraction stuff, but core features don't use that stuff. The demands on the already overworked three India guys that program all the functions in Verizon phones would kill them. It would be just a nightmare to try and support every single stinking phone. Hardware vendors aren't really making phones to be eaiser for the developer, I know hard to believe."

You mean just how my ISP needs to carry FreeBSD kernels to make sure my computer supports TCP/IP? Sorry, it doesn't work that way. All "core" functions are written by the hardware vendors. The only things carriers do usually involve removing features to lock customers in.

"At at rate... Please people stop using your phone as a freaking MP3/WMA/whatever player. Cell phones have quickly become a jack of all trades but a master of jack crap. If you really want an MP3 player go get an iPod or hell be retro and get a CD-player. I carry my phone with me and my iPod shuffle, both small enough not to be a cumbersome duo."

If I wanted separate devices for all functions I desire, I'd be carrying an insane amount of stuff, including a laptop (ssh). Additionally, the phone may not be perfect at everything, but I can't take my EOS-350D everywhere I go, and a missed photo is worse than a grainy one.

Re:Fuck M$

[nxtw]

Verizon is by far the most restrictive US carrier. The USA has two major GSM carriers which will let you use any compatible phone on their network. There is no activation process, no automatic settings download; just a quick SIM switch. They won't help you with setting up features like GPRS/EDGE, but the settings are easy to find and can be entered as long as the phone's settings are not locked to some other carrier.

Verizon, OTOH, doesn't like to activate any ESN (serial number) that isn't theirs, because they're "not E911 compatible". They say this regardless of the device's E911 compatibility. If you do manage to get a third-party phone activated on any CDMA carrier (Sprint, Alltel, Verizon), you'd have a very hard time getting all the network features working.

Re:Fuck M$

[EvilJoker]

T-Mobile and Cingular both lock their phones. Thus, to do do a simple SIM-switch, it must either be a phone locked to the same carrier, or have been manually unlocked (not a simple process)

As for the ESN on VZW, they will activate unbranded phones, as long as they have a branded version (e.g. They will activate an Alltel RAZR, because they have a VZW RAZR). As for network features, both the target and the branding carriers (Alltel and VZW in the example above) must support the features in question. Since Alltel doesn't support VCAST yet, those RAZRs can't use it.

Re:Fuck M$

[EvilJoker]

The issues you're talking about are all handled by firmware- which is not something that can be programmed over the air. To activate another carrier's phone, it must also exist on the target carrier's list. Beyond that, it's not usually a problem.

Re:Fuck M$

[nxtw]

T-Mobile and Cingular both lock their phones. Thus, to do do a simple SIM-switch, it must either be a phone locked to the same carrier, or have been manually unlocked (not a simple process)

Unlocking is not difficult once you have the code, which you can often pay for or with a small hassle get from your carrier. A much easier solution is to buy an unlocked phone, which is not difficult; you can get unlocked phones easily online, and they're starting to show up in retail stores like CompUSA as well.

Re:Fuck M$

[EvilJoker]

Invariably, unlocked phones are more expensive, or outdated- locked phones are subsidized by the carrier (at least here in the US) in exchange for a contract. An unlocked phone is one that has either never been subsidized, or was purchased with a contract that was then cancelled early (w/ or w/o being delinquent).

$150 more, or 2 years older, is not a very good choice, especially when you're still paying the carrier the exact same amount for nothing.

Re:Fuck M$

[Lehk228]

if they can't update the firmware over the air then explain to me how it was that i updated my phone by calling a service number and selecting the option to update the firmware on my phone. after that the crashing issue i was having went away.

Re:Fuck M$

[EvilJoker]

This has been answered repeatedly on most cell phone forums. Phones can be "programmed" (i.e. configured for the account and carrier), and PRLs can be loaded over the air. Firmware cannot, for a variety of reasons, such as risk (flashing the firmware is still not a perfect process, and fries phones regularly), complexity (it would have to hold the link open while it overwrites the code to do so), and confusion- firmware often modifies the UI. If it happens, most consumers are going to be very puzzled and call up customer service about it.

Re:Fuck M$

[nxtw]

Huh? Buying unlocked phones is the best way to get up-to-date phones; otherwise, you're normally stuck with phones that have been available at least for a month elsewhere around the world.

Re:Fuck M$

[EvilJoker]

Unless you're getting quad-band phones (rare), the ones available globally will probably not work in the states- the U.S. uses 850/1900 instead of the 900/1800 most of the world uses.

Re:Fuck M$

[nxtw]

Most phones support 1900mhz, which is the primary frequency used by T-Mobile users; as long as they stay in T-Mobile's coverage area. Cingular users that live in an area well covered by 1900mhz can also get by with 850-less phones. also, quad band phones are becoming increasingly common.

Why do you put up with this shit?

[Gordonjcp]

Every other country in the world has sane mobile phone pricing and services. Why not the US?

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[ceeam]

Sue your lawyers.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Land of the Free, home of the Brave.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[antifoidulus]

Um, just a question, have you actually LIVED in other countries and the US? I have lived in the US, Japan, and Germany and the US system is the cheapest(esp. if you want to use it as your only phone). It costs me 65 euro cents a minute to call on my mobile phone, it costs 20 cents a minute to call a mobile phone from a land line(which costs 20 euros a month just for basic service, it's cheaper to call across the globe than to call a cell phone across the street). You can get a good plan in the US for about $40 a month including taxes with more minutes than you could ever use(yeah, incoming calls aren't free, but with the amount of non-metered time and minutes they give you a month it isn't really a big deal). Not to mention it cost my mother $13 for a 4 minute call to my cellphone from the US. Yeah, there aren't cheap mp3 services, but honestly I don't give a fuck, I have an iPod for music, I don't need it on my phone.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Registered Coward v2]

Every other country in the world has sane mobile phone pricing and services. Why not the US?

It depends on what you mean by sane. I can call an area the size of Europe for one flat rate - no roaming, no need to buy and switch SIM cards and phone numbers if I visit a place 3000KM away, plus part or all of the cost of the phone is spread over a 12 or 24 month period. Sure I can't take my phone overseas unless I make sure to get one that has the right GSM or CDMA bands and if I want that my phone choice is limited; but most US consumers probably never leave their home area very often and have no need to be able to roam world wide; in addition, most Europeans I meet here are loath to use their phone here because of the costs; if they really need a phone they can get a prepaid one dirt cheap or buy a SIM card which means they lose their number temporarily.

It's not that one system is better - ours works well for the US consumer based on their phone use habits.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[LiquidCoooled]

Its because the American market doesn't have mobile-phones, they only have expensive knock off "cell-phones".
If the companies would release proper mobile-phones over there then your right, the world would be a better place.

[/tongueincheek]

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Krach42]

most Europeans I meet here are loath to use their phone here because of the costs; if they really need a phone they can get a prepaid one dirt cheap or buy a SIM card which means they lose their number temporarily.

This is likely why so many of them use SMS to talk more than actually calling each other. You can send 3 or 4 SMSs for a minute long phone call.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[badmigraine]

I'm not sure about the pricing part of it, but mobile phones in Japan are fairly well locked down with DRM restrictions too. I got a Nokia 6630 smartphone from Vodafone Japan, billed as an mp3 player, photo/video player, tons of games and apps...lo and behold, NOTHING works on it unless you bought the app, song, vid, etc. from Vodafone Japan. What a joke. You can use HalWin to un-sis apps on your computer, then install them directly into the phone's system folder, and this gets around the primitive DRM. I'm sure the next version won't be so easy to hack, but there you go. So much for other countries having sane services.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[zeenixus]

"It's not that one system is better - ours works well for the US consumer based on their phone use habits."

no, more like the phone companies here know how far they can turn the screws on their customers before too many customers will leave. And they're always looking for more screws to turn. Verizon is probably the most notorious. /me glances at his moto v710 with crippled bluetooth

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[ahillen]

If those prices are supposed to be German prices, it is clearly a couple of years that you were in Germany. I am not saying that Germany is cheap, but calling a mobile phone right now from my (standard) landline would cost me less than 11 cents. And for 25 Euros you get nowadays a contract which includes a flat rate for calls to land lines and mobile phones on the same network.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[dascandy]

You might want to search a little harder for a good deal. Average around here is 10c/min for normal calls, I found one (limited in number of target phones, but still good enough) with which I can call everybody I know for 60 hours a month for 10,50 in total, including phone and 30 smses a month. Calculate it out, the phone costs 6*24= 216 euros (ok, that's a slight bit more), the smses are 60 euros for in total 720 smses (8.8c each) and the phone calls average to something like 0.06 cents a minute.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Hank Powers]

Maybe you haven't been to Finland. We have such prices that calls cost only 6.9 cents a minute and the monthly basic fee is a little over than half a euro.

In addition to that, there are no obligations about using the phone provided by the operator. Just simple and understandable pricing without any "plans" as they're called in the US. In fact it is even forbidden by law sell operator-locked cellulars here. (However, they're trying to make it possible for 3G phones soon.)

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[kamapuaa]

China - the world's largest cell phone market - is quite a bit more expensive than the US. People end up using SMS just to avoid the charges, even though using SMS with Chinese Characters is kind of a pain.

The US has 5 major service providers in competition with each other, and many smaller regions are serviced by local cell phone companies. Of course the prices are better than most other countries.

Considering what a small share of the desktop market Macintosh and Linux has (in the US, about 4%), and that a substantial percentage of such people also have access to Windows, I don't really see this as being all that big a deal.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[burne]

Prices in the Netherlands: mobile: mobile plan is 20 euro's per month with 250 free minutes. After that it's 15 cent per minute, and free unmetered calls to collegue's. Landline: 1.3 all the way up to 3.6 cent per minute for calls in the netherlands. Calling to Japan will cost 6.5 to 7 cent a minute, America is 3.5 to 4.5 cent a minute and so on.

And I have an iPod (and iTMS-account) as well.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Carthag]

While it's true that European cell rates are probably slightly higher than US ones (at least in my experience), I find the service as such to be orders of magnitude better. It's only in recent years that the US has even begun to compare to Europe in terms of coverage, interoperability, and legal issues (for instance, simlock removal has been required to be free by the service provider here in Denmark for years).

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Kamel Jockey]

Verizon is probably the most notorious. /me glances at his moto v710 with crippled bluetooth

Whose fault is it for buying such a phone? Did Verizon hold a gun to your head and force you to purchase it? The V710's crippled Bluetooth implementation wasn't exactly a secret. Heck, if you had googled for the term "v710" one of the first entries tells you that the phone is crippled.

You cannot indict the cell phone companies in the USA based on a single ill-informed purchase. There are many people who buy unlocked, uncrippled phones from other providers (like what I did) and have had no problems at all with their phones.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[heavy snowfall]

Classic case of preventing the casual attempt with crap DRM. Works though.. Japan (obv) has the sweetest cellphones... Like the black/orange Toshiba one with GPS.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[99luftballon]

The myth of competition.
In Europe we agreed a GSM standard and let competition commence. Competition over initial standards set the US mobile market back 5+ years. Competition has an important role but it isn't all that. Besides, there are so many anti-competitive tactics in use worldwide that the best product doesn't always win.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[coolcold]

maybe you would want to check out the price in hong kong
landlines to mobile are free for landlines
mobile plans are like in the thousands minutes (incoming calls also use up minutes though) for 20 USD

my information were abit out-dated though :p

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[grumling]

Every other country in the world has sane mobile phone pricing and services. Why not the US?

Well, I don't know about pricing for phones in other contries, but here in the US, you have to sign a contract to get service, or pay a much higher rate and deal with a very limited phone selection (and I think you still end up signing some sort of implied contract). Verizon is the only provider in my area that has any sort of coverage once you get over the mountain, so that's what I have to use. I really don't want to move to an area with more carriers, so this is the choice I make. Once they get you in the contract (which has a lot of fine print that is hard to read when the customer service rep is wearing a tight low-cut dress), they tend to get a little more restrictive.

From the Customer Agreement:

Your Wireless Phone
Your wireless phone is any device you use to receive our wireless voice or data service. It must comply with Federal Communications Commission regulations and be compatible with our network and your calling plan. Whether you buy your wireless phone from us or someone else is entirely your choice. At times we may change your wireless phone's software or programming remotely and without notice. This could affect data you've stored on, or the way you've programmed, your wireless phone. Your wireless phone may also contain software that prevents it from being used with any other company's wireless service, even if it's no longer used to receive our service.

In the US, contract law trumps civil law. Besides, they'll just tell you to go somewhere else if you don't like it (they make $175 if you cancel the contract after the 15 day trial period).

I recently picked up a VX-9800 because I was looking for an all in one phone. I looked at the vcast services an thought they were nothing more than a marketing gimic to get press, but I tried it anyway (VZW always allows a 15 day trial period). Of course, they haven't upgraded the towers in my area, so it doesn't work. Still, I don't think I would bother with downloading music (or anything else) to it over their network. I have a 1 gig mini-SD card that will hold all my own content, already paid for.

Now if I can figure out a way to (easily) get .mp4 video on the thing from my cable box, I'll be all set. :)

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[WhiteWolf666]

Shop around.

There are great mobile deals to be had in the U.S., but they require you to shop around, and they require you to sign contracts.

My current deal?

I just signed up with T-mobile for a Motorola V330. The phone was free, and they paid me a $100 sign-up bonus (Amazon.com). I'm on a $45.99 a month contract, with 1500 minutes included, nights/weekends free, and T-mobile to T-mobile free.

I pay an addition $19.99 for unlimited EDGE Gprs service. My monthly bill comes to about $70.00, which I feel is pretty good for the number of minutes, and the unlimited internet access. I use approximately 2000 minutes a month, with heavy emphasis on nights and mobile-to-mobile. I use ~40 megs per month of date transfer.

For me, that averages about .025 USD per minute, and .000488037109 USD per kilobyte. Both of these are substantially cheaper than any plan I've found in Europe (just got back for a 2 month Europe trip, visted France, UK, Netherlands, and Spain).

It's all about usage patterns. In Europe, you'll pay substantially less than an average American if you control your usage. In the U.S., you'll pay an incredible rate if you have a very high consumption level.

Where Europe generally shines is on the high-end services. The only 3G option we have here at the moment is EVDO, which is fairly expensive, and requires you to sign with Verizon, whom I hate. Given the European pricing structures, however, and government backed loans to the mobile operators, it makes financial sense for them to offer these services, while American operates attempt to make as much money off their existing equipment as possible.

The nice thing about this from our perspective is that we tend to get better tested systems when they finally do release them. Every EVDO subscriber I've talked to has been pretty thrilled, if mainly because the system was well worked over in Japan and S. Korea before it came over here.

I imagine that T-Mobile's European experiments with 3G will enable them to build a fantastic system over here when they get round to it.

The crappy part is the obvious part; Europeans (and S.E. Asians) get better equipment substantially faster, and have a wider diversity of phones avaliable.

Again, this makes sense; the American consumer expects their phone to be free, so we aren't gonna get the best phones, we're going to get the bottom of the barrel. I'm not particularly happy with my V330, but I didn't have a Nokia option avaliable with Bluetooth, EDGE, and a moderately okay camera. Someday, I will; and then I'll be paying less per minute and KByte than the average European phone customer. But I've got to wait longer :(

P.S. Oh, wanna tip for being able to transfer your American phones from carrier to carrier? At least with GSM?

Calll your carrier before you cancel. Tell them you are going to travel to Europe, and you want your phone SIM-unlocked for a Pay-as-You-Go plan for Europe. You'll read them your IMEI number, and they'll e-mail you within 48 hours the SIM unlock code. I've successfully done this with Cingular and T-mobile. If they give you any trouble, tell them your friend with whom you are travelling with did the same thing last week.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[zootm]

To be fair, I have a plan in the UK for about the same price with a completely unusable number of calls and texts, plus a mobile phone included with the plan, and we're commonly cited as being overpriced. I know for a fact it's less in many places in Europe.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Hank Powers]

To clear up my previous post: I meant of course that we aren't obligated to use a phone provided by the operator. Phones are sold separately from the service.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[owlstead]

In the netherlands you can get SIM-only plan starting from 3 euro's from T-mobile, a german provider. So what are you talking about? It's still pretty expensive to call from a landline, but normally you would get a slightly higher plan and call back using the mobile phone. These prices will come down (because of the various governments pushing the old monopolies). My plan costs me 20 euro, with 5 months free out of the 24. But then again, I wanted that particular expensive phone (bluetooth support, rather nice screen). At least we all use the same standard (GSM) which is pretty nice.

Some prices are still under presure from the old UMTS deal, which made the Netherlands government a lot of money, which we are paying back now. Since the Dutch telecom provider KPN is now nicely back in the black, that should be history as well. And they finally are delivering UMTS services as well. You would not believe *those* prices though.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[vidarh]

no need to buy and switch SIM cards and phone numbers if I visit a place 3000KM away, plus part or all of the cost of the phone is spread over a 12 or 24 month

Which is exactly how it is in Europe too.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[twodot72]

Report from Sweden: Cellphone rates are around 5-6 eurocents a minute (usually with some minimum charge or additional fixed fee per month though). Your figures seem out-of-date. Prices have plummeted the last couple of years.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[grimJester]

Are grandparent's claims about pricing true? I live in Finland as well and find it hard to believe that the US, at ten times our prices, plus operator locked phones plus paying for incoming calls has the next cheapest system in the world.

Glancing at other replies here, at least Germany and the Netherlands have prices similar to Finland.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[aztec rain god]

That's it, I'm moving to Finland!

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[DrSkwid]

(one of the cheapest) data price here (uk) is :

£8 / $4.52 per month for up to to 5mb (£0.40p / $0.22 per MB)
then £1 / $0.5645 per MB

sliding to

£40 / $22.58 per month for up to 512Mb (£0.77 / $0.43 per MB)
then £0.75 / $0.42 per MB

£75 /$ 42.62 per month for up 1024Mb expected usage (£0.07 / $0.04 per MB)
then O2 reserves the right to apply extra charges or to withdraw the Data Max 1024 service from any individual at any time in the case of suspected overuse or abuse of the service. Any charges introduced shall be binding and final between You and O2 and shall not be the subject of mediation or arbitration.

http://www.o2.co.uk/business/tariffs/datatariffs/0 ,,203,00.html

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

1/2 a cent a minute in India. Nice phones are thrown in for free or are dirt cheap. Monthly costs are ridiculously small.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Carthag]

So does Denmark (and I guess the rest of Scandinavia). My current rates are ~11 eurocents for talking & ~3 eurocents for SMSes, but that's one of the refill plans. It works for me as I don't really talk that much.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want a phone that, ya know, makes a phone call. Forget all the camera / mp3 / games crap. Make a phone that is a phone and nothing else and I'll be a happy man. So will a crap load of other people. This bullshit that "people don't want simple" is a load of crap. Talk to any business owner out there and they will tell you different.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to pay for incoming calls? Seriously? So when someone calls you, you have to pay for it? That is what I call living in the Dark Ages! Tell me you didn't mean that when someone calls you and you pick up your phone, you get charged for it! Even Noah had a better service than that (ie those types of rip-off charges went out with the ark). The more times you answer the phone, the more money you pay? Trying to get my head around that one, but not quite managing it!

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[deaddrunk]

no need to buy and switch SIM cards and phone numbers if I visit a place 3000KM away

Only if that place is in the US. Why do so many Yanks act like Yurp is just one country, it isn't it's a couple of dozen with separate histories, languages, and yes cell-phone companies. Try going to Mexico or Canada and see if the above statement is true.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[RobertLTux]

as it so happens the GSM carriers can use just about any (gsm) phone method

1 do the signup and get a rock cheap phone
2 buy/whatever your cool fancy and unlocked phone
3 swap in the sim from the RCP
4 profit!! (ebay the RCP for all it matters)

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[kamapuaa]

Maybe you haven't been to Finland. We have such prices that calls cost only 6.9 cents a minute

Hmmm...so Finland goes at 6.9 eurocents min? That comes to US 8.3 cents a minute.

In the US, after taxes, I was paying $45/month for 1000 minutes, and I got to keep unused minutes. Not the best deal, but I didn't have to pay long distance to call between Hawai'i and the mainland, which I did frequently (same country but 4,000 miles distance).

That works out to 4.5 US cents per minute, I believe you could get that down to 3.5 or 4 cents per minute if you shop around. With year-long contracts on such service, cell phones are free or subsidized, depending on the model.

So anyway, you're paying more than double what a US consumer pays for their service.

I'm surprised the Finnish government imposes regulations on consumers that they're not allowed to buy cell phones with a contract - even Communist China, where I now live, allows consumers the option. I'm even more surprised you take this restriction as a positive.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[rworne]

Here's a resaon why it's so cheap in HK.

Hong Kong: 422 square miles, main island is 36 square miles
United States: 3,537,441 square miles

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[arth1]

When comparing per-minute prices for US and a country like, say, Finland, don't forget that in the US you pay per-minute prices also for incoming calls, which, if you terminate as many calls as you originate, means the actual cost is twice as high.

As for 1000-minute-per-month plans, who in their right minds spend that much time on a phone? If you do, and it's not for work (who'd pay for your phone anyhow), I'd say you have an abnormal unsatiated need for human contact, and might want to consider talking to someone professional. Face to face, that is.

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that Finland is blessed with a homogeneous white population. In America we are cursed with the burden of a dark underclass of mudpeople, Negroes, and third world parasites. Solutions which work in Finland would fail here because of the way the underclass abuse and game the system.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[jitterysquid]

In the US, after taxes, I was paying $45/month for 1000 minutes, and I got to keep unused minutes.

This is false value. Unless you are using every one of those 1000 minutes every month, the fact that you get to keep them into the next month is only helpful to smooth out monthly variants in your minute usage. You cannot cash them out, nor do they do you any good when you stop paying $45 per month to your provider. Even if you assume that you will stay with said provider forever and the plan will never change you will merely be accruing minutes for the off chance that you dramatically increase your usage.

US cell phone companies have optimized so heavily for the median customer (~1000 minute/month usage and needs a subsidized phone to defray startup costs) that they totally screw the outliers. My wife and I use ~400 minutes per year. I would kill a kitten for a workable system like Finland's. As it is we use prepaid service here, which I am mostly happy with except that I would like to have the option of prepaying for data service.

Oh well, I can't see anything changing here anytime soon. Long live the corporations and service so terrible they have to lock you in to keep you as a "customer".

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[rts008]

"Why do so many Yanks act like Yurp is just one country"

Good point, we do seem to act this way. Fairly simple to explain tho': geographically, (ie: close proximity of borders compared between EU nations and US' state borders) the illusion (or oversimplification) of similarity makes the concept easier for most "Yanks" to concieve the "big picture) geographically. I think the main reason that we do these mental gymnastics are because of the way we developed here. We have a LARGE country here, we have become very mobile in our lives here. It is fairly common here to have family (still living in same country as you) several thousands of miles away that you go visit frequently (xmas, thanksgiving, weddings, etc.), so the concept of travelling acroos/through several states easily is the most direct comparison for us to make with "Yurp".

An illustration (BTW-I've spent several years in Germany and used that oppurtunity to travel around "Yurp" ALOT!):
While living in Pennsylvania and working commercial construction, we would frequently work in NYC and NJ. I lived on 1200 acre farm, and closest neighbor was 0.6 miles/ 1 kilometer. Some of the electricians on the job (local NJ or NYC) would have a hard time accepting the reality of not having MANY neighbors MUCH closer- they would literally remark "I just can't picture that in my head!" This may seem to contridict my explaination above, but wait, there's more! These (electricians) guys had grew up and spent their whole lives within a several square mile radius from where they were born- this is not typical for us here in US. The point is: you use your perception of the world (geographically speaking in this case) around you to try and understand the rest of the world. To us, travelling around the US is similar to travelling around EU- the size scale is too close to the relationship between US/States borders (proximity-wise) and EU/Nations borders for us to NOT be influenced by this.

Personally, I've found it much easier to travel around "Yurp" than here (US) by far. It's very convient to just hop in the car and take off cross country, but a hassle (lodging, fuel, having to stay alert, etc.) compared to boarding a train in Stuttgart and going to say, Paris ( I know- I hated Paris too- just first place popped in head).
Our dependence on our cars/trucks during the early/mid 1900's was the easy way out for interstate travel/commerce compared to the difficulties of railroads helped produce this mindset.
Or simply: we think like this due to our population density. :)

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[tealover]

400 minutes a year ? Get a prepaid and shut yer trap.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

The going price for a 1000 min/month deal in Finland is 36 euros, equal to about 44 US dollars. The difference is that In Finland, you only pay for outgoing calls, incoming calls are free (or in other words, paid by the caller).

The regulations that restrict tying are based on competition (anti-trust) law, and they are supposed to be based on the economic benefits of strengthened competition. Nothing communist about it, although the pro-consumer bias can probably be seen as socialist.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just repeating what others have said, but in Russia, it's pretty damn expensive to make a phone call and like another poster said for China, most just stick to SMS, which, under some deals, is free.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Mr2001]

I pay an addition $19.99 for unlimited EDGE Gprs service. My monthly bill comes to about $70.00, which I feel is pretty good for the number of minutes, and the unlimited internet access. I use approximately 2000 minutes a month, with heavy emphasis on nights and mobile-to-mobile. I use ~40 megs per month of date transfer.

Hmm. My monthly bill with Verizon is around $60, which includes 450 peak minutes, unlimited N/W and mobile-to-mobile, and 250 text messages. Data is billed using the same minutes as voice, so it's unlimited as long as I mainly use it at night or on weekends.

The only 3G option we have here at the moment is EVDO, which is fairly expensive, and requires you to sign with Verizon, whom I hate.

1xRTT is considered a 3G technology (as part of CDMA2000), even though it tops out at 144 kbps. You can use it basically anywhere in the country with either Verizon or Sprint.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[WhiteWolf666]

No Offense, but 1xRTT is pretty crappy ;-)

EDGE GPRS is similar, as long as you use a Class 10 device.

EVDO is 'the real deal'. 1xRTT doesn't really get you much past dial-up speeds, and the latency (although not as high as EDGE GPRS) is significantly higher.

Also, Verizon charges $60 (with a voice plan) for unlimited data (tethered to laptop), and I don't think Sprint has an all you can eat data plan.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[O]

Nothing's stopping you from getting it flashed with generic firmware that doesn't have those restrictions.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[pintomp3]

perhaps the average /.er has noone to talk offline, but half an hour a day is not a crazy amount of time to to be on the phone. on top of that, a lot of people use their cell phones instead of paying long distance charges on their landline. also, most people people pay for their own phone, not work. many carry two, one work and another personal.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[squiggleslash]

With anything where you can't compare apples to oranges, you can make up claim and find evidence to support it.

US carriers generally operate a different tariff structure to that of the rest of the world. As a result, it's hard to make direct comparisons. As a heavy mobile phone user, I have to say the US plans are, ultimately, cheaper than anything I'd find in the UK. If I wasn't a heavy user, then the plans would be a little more difficult to make use of.

Most US plans feature a large "unmetered" component. This generally comprises of off-peak calls, and/or in-network calls. Additionally, most feature a largish number of bundled minutes for calls that are metered.

Conversely, most UK plans (I'm familiar with the UK, but do not believe it's atypical) either comprise of a largish number of bundled minutes, typically for the same cost as the equivalent US plans (ie poorer value, because unmetered off-peak minutes aren't included), or are pay as you go, with rates generally comparable to US pay as you go rates. However, unlike the US, the minimum spend for a UK pay-as-you-go plan is usually much, much, lower. It's hard to spend less than $10 a month on top-ups, even if you never use the phone, to maintain a PAYG plan in the US (and many plans require topping up by $30 a month or worse), whereas typically you just need to make a phone call every few months to keep a UK PAYG plan active.

What does this mean in practice? It means that if you make thousands of minutes of calls a month, you're almost certainly better off in the US. Conversely, if you make one call every few days, and that's rarely more than a minute long, Europeans generally have better options available to them.

BTW, whether the phone subscriber pays for incoming calls is irrelevent to which system has the lower rates. Someone always pays for calls to mobiles, whether it's the subscriber or the caller, and on average, it's likely to balance out.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[NotoriousQ]

It is not an even comparison there too.

For example, most companies in the US do not meter any calls made entirely on their network, even during peak times, plus they all nights and weekends are not metered as well.

I have recently signed up for a 2-year contract with South Pacific Railway International (SPRInt) for the whole family, For about $60 a month, I have received 3 new phones, 800 minutes (metered during the day incoming and outgoing) shared between the phones, free weekends and nights to anywhere in the US, and free calls to anyone on SPRINT (including all members of the family). We only end up metering 500 minutes a month, with total talk time of about 2500-3500 minutes (3 people incoming and outgoing).

So for about $20 US/month/person, I never think about the prices when I call on the phone. That is what I call a good deal. However, our phones are locked in, and play mp3 files for $4 a track, and new wallpapers are downloadable for about $2 a piece. Guess what we do: we do not download wallpapers or play mp3s on the cell phones.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Registered Coward v2]

no need to buy and switch SIM cards and phone numbers if I visit a place 3000KM away, plus part or all of the cost of the phone is spread over a 12 or 24 month

Which is exactly how it is in Europe too.

Except in Europe you generally can't call from say Poland to Portugal for no charge past your basic fee, or roam from Germany to England and call a number in Italy for no additional charge; OTOH in the US you can roam without any additinal charges nor long distance fees.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Registered Coward v2]

no need to buy and switch SIM cards and phone numbers if I visit a place 3000KM away

Only if that place is in the US. Why do so many Yanks act like Yurp is just one country, it isn't it's a couple of dozen with separate histories, languages, and yes cell-phone companies. Try going to Mexico or Canada and see if the above statement is true.

Actually, I can call for no additional charge (beyond the basic flat fee) from a good bit of Canada and Mexico if I pick a plan with taht feature. While I realize Europe is seperate countries (despite the EU); in size it is roughly equal to the US and yet can't seem to get one Europe wide cell phone provider. I'm not saying one model is better or worse, just that the original poster's contention that US cell phone users have a bad deal is not true for most people.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[dangitman]

Make a phone that is a phone and nothing else and I'll be a happy man.

WTF? There are tons of phones like that. just get the cheapest phone you can find, and it will probably fit this bill.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[jrockway]

T-mobile is the way to go. I got totally shafted by US Cellular to the point that I didn't have service, but I had to pay anyway. After I cancelled (for free, due to them fucking up the fine print!), I didn't have a cell phone for months because I hated every single American provider and their handsets. (My first introduction to cellular phones was in Japan many years ago, and I loved their service and phones so much....)

Anyway, I was finally coerced into getting a cell phone again. I looked at T-mobile, and didn't like their phones that much, but I went to the store anyway. The store was run by a very nice Indian couple, and they gave me a new model that just came in (or something), the Motorola v360. I got it for $100 and a 700min/month plan for thirty-something dollars a month. The service is wonderful, calls are clear everywhere. The phone is great too. It syncs via bluetooth with my mac, and I can use bluetooth to get wireless when I'm nt near Wi-Fi (on Metra it's great!). The unlimited data plan I have is $6.99 a month... it's supposed to only let you visit wap sites and get your mail, but I setup a SOCKS proxy on a machine of mine running on the pop3 port... this lets me have unlimited Internet on my laptop... all wirelessly over bluetooth.

Overall, I love T-Mobile. They have great service (in Chicago, anyway), great prices, and the salespeople weren't even pushy! Recommended.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[citizenr]

"don't forget that in the US you pay per-minute prices also for incoming calls"

pleas tell me you are joking, do you actually pay twice for every call (caller and the person being called)? No wonder Verizon wants Google to pay up for the "internet services" it provides to Verizon customers

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[EvilJoker]

...And that same simlock removal is ILLEGAL in Hungary. Period.

European cell standards aren't mandated by the entire continent, they're all a patchwork of different standards. Some areas are better and more free, others are more restrictive.

As for coverage, well, the U.S. is a rather large country. In most urban areas, there's at least 1 carrier that works reliably, (and in many, most or all work fine). It's the rural areas that are a problem, and I doubt that European carriers are really interested in covering areas with less than 2 people per square kilometer

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[ChadN]

I just got a T-Mobile Motorola V360 and mine does NOT sync with my Mac using iSync. There are some hacks to get it mostly working (Basically is just involves copying the specs of a similar phone, putting the right model number in, and adding it to a file that contains all the iSync specs), and I'm hoping OS X 10.4.4 will make it work. But, at least for me, it didn't iSync right out of the box (as of 10.4.3). Otherwise a pretty good phone (and much more comfortable than the RAZR, IMO).

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[jrockway]

Yeah, I guess it didn't work out of the box... but it worked 30 seconds out of the box. You can still use the Internet and transfer MP3s to the phone via bluetooth, though.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[kamapuaa]

If you do, and it's not for work (who'd pay for your phone anyhow), I'd say you have an abnormal unsatiated need for human contact, and might want to consider talking to someone professional. Face to face, that is.

Hey, thanks for the social tips. I now recognize, half an hour on the phone per day is a huge amount of time, and was definitely getting in the way of talking to people in real life. Got it.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

except that you can't use the vodafone specific services with the generic firmware.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[ssstraub]

There are great mobile deals to be had in the U.S., but they require you to shop around, and they require you to sign contracts.

My current deal?

I just signed up with T-mobile for a Motorola V330. The phone was free, and they paid me a $100 sign-up bonus (Amazon.com). I'm on a $45.99 a month contract, with 1500 minutes included, nights/weekends free, and T-mobile to T-mobile free.

What you mean to say is there's one single good deal and it is not open to everyone.

Let's count the ways that the above is not nearly the same as walking into a store and buying a phone for that price:

1. You used the ONLY online store that I know of that offers such attractive rebates. If Amazon stops the rebates, your deal doesn't exist.
2. The rebates require you to open a NEW T-Mobile account. I have had T-Mobile for 2 years, so your tip doesn't help me or anyone with an existing T-Mobile account.
3.The 1500 minutes plan for $39.99 was just recently started by T-Mobile. What were you paying BEFORE this plan was introduded?

As I understand it, in other parts of the world you pick ANY phone, ANY service, and ANY plan, no matter what your current situation is, and the only downside is you most likely pay retail price on the phone. That seems to be quite a bit better than what you just described.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[WhiteWolf666]

1. T-mobile regularly offers free phones. Go into the store, or call 'em up. You have to bargain a little bit sometimes, but you can usually get a midrange phone free. The Amazon deal is just gravy.

P.S. I just got my father a V360 for free from Customer Service on his account. He had to resign his contract, for 2 more years, but his new phone is 100% free.

2. See #1. Learn to bargain ;-)

3. This deal is rotated in and out. They tend to offer it for 3 months every 18 months. They also offer a variety of other deals that are pretty good, too, like the 3000 minutes for $39.99 (or $49.99, can't remember), within your 5-state local region. I've been on this $39.99 plan for over 3 years.

The way I described getting a good deal from T-mobile is the straight forward way. But you can do it from a store or via phone Customer Service, too; what you don't understand is that each and ever T-mobile franchise store gets ridiculous signup bonus whenever they sucker you into a 2-year contract. This means that if they end up charge you for any phone under $150 retail price, you got ripped off, royally.

You might not be able to get the store to pay you a $100 credit; but a free phone isn't a bad deal.

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[ssstraub]

I don't feel a 2-year contract is anywhere near as good of a deal as you can get in Europe or Japan, especially considering the fact that any phone you get from T-Mobile is 2 years old on the world market. A "mid-range" phone is even older.

Now I readily admit that the model phone you get is a completely different argument, but this is still a worse deal than what I understand people go through in other parts of the world, and this point is always brought up by those that live outside the USA whenever a mobile phone discussion comes up, so I have a feeling it's probably true.

And don't even get me started about data plan prices, 10 cents per text message (T-Mobile recently raised their rates to this if you aren't using pre-paid text messaging or go over your limit), carriers crippling all the useful features on the phones they "sell" you, and the fact we pay for INCOMING calls as well as outgoing. Why don't I have to pay for incoming landline calls?

Re:Why do you put up with this shit?

[WhiteWolf666]

*shrug*

We're keeping an old conversation alive ;-)

I'd suggest looking at prices in other countries. My british cousin spend about 12 pence per text message; thats ~20 cents. Incoming calls are free, but her average rate for outgoing is about 10 pence. That's about 18 cents per minute.

Plus she pays an 6 pound monthly fee, which i feel is rather alot.

T-mobile UK rates: http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/Dispatcher?menuid=phones _opp
O2 UK rates: http://www.o2.co.uk/personal/choosetariff/0,,111,0 0.html

Keep in mind 1 pound = ~1.8 dollars

These prices are pretty representative of Europe; I just got back from UK, France, Holland.

I'm too lazy to find Japanese or S. Korean prices, but I've heard they are similar. I know first hand that cell phones in Africa and the Mid East (GSM, of course) are _vastly_ more expensive than here. I've been in Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, and Dubai, and its _expensive_.

Our service is shitter. But we pay less for it ;-)

seems to be a firmware issue?

[zegebbers]

Is it possible to downgrade the firmware to pre v05 so that you can play mp3s still ?

Re:seems to be a firmware issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but I believe if you complain to them, they will give you a previous version of the phone... they don't advertise about that because it's in the deal with Microsoft.

So go to their (Verison's) website and/or talk to a service rep or something about it. Tell them your phone is broken; it won't play mp3s anymore. They'll probly fix you right up, but who knows?

Conversion != Playback

[robbieduncan]

Converting MP3 to WMA does not mean that these phones are capable of playing MP3s. This is just like Sony's portable audio devices only playing ATRAC (yes I know they've fixed this now).

Re:Conversion != Playback

[Anonymous Coward]

Please read the damn article. You might find that the phones USED to play MP3 fine with version V04 of the firmware, but with V05 and above it has been intentionally disabled.

Reverse engineers..

[Travoltus]

start your engines!

Preferably in another country, that is. We wouldn't want anyone being being sent to Guantanamo as a terrorist for the crime of enabling Americans to upload music to Vcast on their own terms...

Conversion on Mac & Linux

[rvw]

This conversion, however, is not available for phones on Mac or Linux, leaving these customers unable to play MP3s.

Mac and Linux users can convert mp3's to WMA on their computer first before playing it on their phone, not? But I suppose Mac and Linux users will make other choices in general, and thus won't buy this phone.

Re:Conversion on Mac & Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac and Linux users can convert mp3's to WMA on their computer first before playing it on their phone, not?

DRM-infested WMAs are still a problem on Linux. Regular WMAs aren't an obstacle.

Re:Conversion on Mac & Linux

[imroy]

I had thought that maybe FFmpeg could encode WMA's (even an older version), but alas I was wrong. It seems we can only decode them. Oh well. If MS doesn't want everyone to be able to use their format then that's their concern. It does however reveal their motivation behind creating their own format and codecs...

Re:Conversion on Mac & Linux

[toQDuj]

begin quote:
But I suppose Mac and Linux users will make other choices in general, and thus won't buy this phone.
end quote.

Well, I personally find the sony-ericsson T630 a very capable phone WRT phone-computer integration. Salling clicker and Bluephoneelite as well as Sync have no problems using it to its fullest potential. Plus it is not as bulky as some of the more recent phones. These days it is quite challenging to find any smaller phone in a standard phone seller's display.

B.

Re:Conversion on Mac & Linux

[fishbot]

Well, I personally find the sony-ericsson T630 a very capable phone WRT phone-computer integration.

Ah, but can it play MP3s? I happen to know that it can't :)

On the other hand, I'm still struggling to sync my K750i with Evolution using Multisync - it _sometimes_ works. Bah.

Re:Conversion on Mac & Linux

[toQDuj]

I was posting this in relation to compatibility with the mac programs BluePhoneElite, Salling Clicker and sync.
I happen to know that the K750i is well supported by all those programs as well.
Perhaps you may consider buying a mac with your phone ;).

(actually I was looking to the K750i as a replacement of my current one year old T630 for my battery is showing signs of age).
B.

Re:Conversion on Mac & Linux

[fishbot]

Hmmm ... an excuse to buy that shiny new powerbook I've been drooling over ...

*holds hands up mr burns style*

Eeeexcellent

Not a good idea

[Skrekkur]

I would think that just converting mp3 into wma is a generally bad idea, since the sound is guaranteed only to get worse, as things most often do when converting from a lossy compression to another. make world

Re:Not a good idea

[pesc]

I would think that just converting mp3 into wma is a generally bad idea, since the sound is guaranteed only to get worse, as things most often do when converting from a lossy compression to another.

The next thing to happen is that some "independant analysts" will do a blind test and compare MP3 encoded files with WMA files on these devices. The result will prove that WMA encoding is superior.

FLAC

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather have a phone that is even capable of playing FLAC, let alone do any of this Vcast crap.

Re:FLAC

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd what? You need audiophile quality music on your phone do you? You must have an awefully good set of bud earphones if you can notice the difference between lossless and decent bitrate lossy audio on a mobile player.

Re:FLAC

[typan]

I don't know if it has to do with audiophile quality as much as for people who store music at home in FLAC, maintaing a seperate MP3 (or whatever) collection for portables is a pain in the ass. With storage as cheap as it is, is it really that crazy to say "I just want to go with FLAC on everything"? Same thing with this phone really. Converting to WMA is just a pain in the ass. I first thought they had a good idea with this (that is, if you like the idea of a MP3 plyaer/phone combo, which many here do not) but adding the WMA conversion makes it just another product to sigh at.

Re:FLAC

[dangitman]

I don't know if it has to do with audiophile quality as much as for people who store music at home in FLAC, maintaing a seperate MP3 (or whatever) collection for portables is a pain in the ass.

Why? Just run a script that converts FLAC to MP3 when you sync with the phone.

With storage as cheap as it is, is it really that crazy to say "I just want to go with FLAC on everything"?

Yes. With storage space so cheap, it costs almost nothing to keep an MP3 mirror of your FLACs. I'm also not sure how widely available FLAC decoding is in mobile chips, and how much processor power it takes to implement.

The desire to do this also ignores the fact that many phones have poor quality amplification circuitry that would not really want to listen to music through in the first place.

So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"This conversion, however, is not available for phones on Mac or Linux, leaving these customers unable to play MP3s."

Most Mac users I know don't use Verizon anyway; the company's services and products are in such bad taste, they send the sensitive aesthete running from the store. You're much likelier to find Mac users on T-Mobile, which is the wireless provider most committed to elegance and beauty, or even Cingular, which at least doesn't cripple the Bluetooth functionality on their handsets.

I suppose Linux users might be out of luck, however.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Mac users I know don't use Verizon anyway; the company's services and products are in such bad taste, they send the sensitive aesthete running from the store.

Are you saying Verizon is anti-gay?

In fact, a really bad idea

[murderlegendre]

You're quite correct. The big problem is caused by the fact that MP3 uses more than just simple compression, it takes advantage of various psychoaccoustic phenomena to (in a sense) trick the brain into hearing soemthing that isn't quite what it seems to be. The conversion to WMA isn't a particularly intelligent process - in fact, I'll go out on a limb and conjecture that the MP3 is first decompressed to a PCM stream, then the PCM stream is re-encoded as WMA. Since WMA is not prepared for the trickery (it's all still there, just without the compression), it parses it all like basic musical signal - totally oblivious of any existing pre/de-emphasis, phase shift, etc.

I've only experimented with convering a few MP3 to WMA, but the results always sounded odd and occasionally downright glitchy. To draw a comparison - I suspect that MP3->WMA to my ears would be very much like replicated sushi to my palate (USS Enterprise - Captain Kirk era, when transporters could still make evil twins).

Re:In fact, a really bad idea

[Random Destruction]

What are you talking about. Riker got a twin, or does he not count cause he wasn't evil?

I dont know my voyager, but I doubt they left out an evil twin episode in there either..

Re:In fact, a really bad idea

[cgenman]

To draw a comparison - I suspect that MP3->WMA to my ears would be very much like replicated sushi to my palate (USS Enterprise - Captain Kirk era)

Welcome to Slashdot! Where molecularly reconstructed sushi on late 70's sci-fi is considered a baseline for comparisons.

VCast not required

[Monad is Missing]

It is still possible to just hook a USB cable and copy MP3s to the phone, and play them. At least it is for me and my Verizon LG-VX8100.

Re:VCast not required

[Anonymous Coward]

And what version of firmware do you have?. The article says that V05 and above disable MP3 playback. I'll guess you have V04?

Re:VCast not required

[dean.collins]

I just dont get it, I've been playing mp3's and transferring them between my computer and my phone via usb for 18 months....the answer is a Palm treo 600. have a nice day :) Dean

Re:VCast not required

[Monad is Missing]

Yes, I have V04 - I guess that I had better remember to never "upgrade" my firmware.

Re:VCast not required

[EvilJoker]

Screw that- I've got the 8100 V04, and I don't use ANY special programs to put MP3s on my phone- I put the miniSD card into my card reader, and copy the MP3s to the MY_MP3 folder. I then put the miniSD back in the phone, and it reads.

If anything requires special software, it needs to have a good reason and a special need. Transferring files is not a special need. (granted, I use BitPim, because reading/writing the EFS is a special need that can't really be met through standards)

Netgear, Skype developing Wi-Fi phone

[luh3417]

This will soon make cell phones obsolete. Serves the greedy marketing-driven cell companies right. If only the Netgear-Skype wifi phone would play mp3's too. No greedy cell phone companies to stop them from adding that feature... http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/01/05/73605_HN netgearskypephone_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www .infoworld.com/article/06/01/05/73605_HNnetgearsky pephone_1.html

Re:Netgear, Skype developing Wi-Fi phone

[g0hare]

You obviously live in a big-ass city. 99% of everybody is NOT within a constant wi-fi signal.

Re:Netgear, Skype developing Wi-Fi phone

[technotot]

in 2007 most likeley, when wimax rolls out. then i'll buy

Captain Obvious here

[Anonymous Coward]

If MS doesn't want everyone to be able to use their format then that's their concern. It does however reveal their motivation behind creating their own format and codecs...

Plain and simple, they want you to use Windows. If they supported other OSes, then you'd have choice. The only choice Microsoft wants you to have is the one between XP Home or XP Pro.

Re:Captain Obvious here

[TallMatthew]

Plain and simple, they want you to use Windows. If they supported other OSes, then you'd have choice. The only choice Microsoft wants you to have is the one between XP Home or XP Pro.

Well, yeah, but it's equally relevant that there's no DRM with MP3s. Microsoft and Verizon are Big Businesses (TM). They can't afford to tick off the Powers That Be (TM).

It's sad that the music industry didn't get behind digital delivery before things got out of hand. DRM makes a certain amount of sense ... but it's way too late. If they had made their catalogs available digitally pre-Napster, consumers might have become accustomed to it and they might have gotten it to work, but at that point they were so consumed with protecting their CD margins that their window of opportunity closed.

Now they're screwed, everything's free if you know what you're doing, and we all get to suffer their litigation. Just another example of corporate greed doing no one any good, including the corporation itself.

Bring on the apologists!

Re:Captain Obvious here

[Urusai]

Hey, I've got XP Pro x64 edition! And with Vista, whole new horizons of choice emerge...

I realize this is a concept for cell providers...

[HangingChad]

...but how about phones that make better phone calls? Instead of trying to add world + dog features to my phone that just junk it up.

Some of the extra features are handy at times. Text messaging isn't fast but it's convenient here and there. Camera is a cute toy but I never use mine.

I wonder how many consumers really want to use their phone as an mp3 player anyway? Or watching TV? Not me, but that's not necessarily reflective of the wider market.

Did you read teh EULA?

[nurb432]

They retain the right to change services and costs as they feel fit. When they feel fit to do it.

Sounds like its time to choose another provider and vote with your pocketbook.

Re:Did you read teh EULA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn! Just when I had already switched away from Verizon! Isn't there some way I can mega-switch away from Verizon? I don't want to get another Verizon phone just to tell them I'm switching again for yet another reason!

Re:I realize this is a concept for cell providers.

[the grace of R'hllor]

Watching TV is kindof stupid, but then I don't get the video iPod either.

MP3 is good. After all, I'm carrying my phone around anyway. If it can play MP3 and store a decent amount on some standard memory card, then w00t. When you're called, music is put on hold and you can use the headset to take a handsfree call (and look like an idiot, talking to yourself).

Anyway, if they make a cheap phone, it means you are not going to buy a more expensive phone. If you do buy a more expensive phone, you are more likely to get a subscription or prepay deal with it, meaning you earn the operators more money.

Re:I realize this is a concept for cell providers.

[WhiteWolf666]

Get a better phone.

The varience in call reception quality between various cell phone manufacturers is amazing.

In my experience, it has been something like this, but there will be additional varience based on the model:

Nokia>Samsung>Motorola>Kyocera>Sony Ericisson

Certain phones are better than others. The high-end Nokia phones (avaliable from places like myworldphone.com) like the business seires smart phones are particularly good phones. My Nokia 3650 experienced fairly few call drops, and only in certain areas with poor coverage (I'm on T-mobile USA, and I've experienced drops in certain 'black holes' on the freeway, and near one shopping mall).

My Motorola V330 gets random drops in areas of high signal, and my Sony Ericssion 610 was an evil brick that dropped at least 30% of my calls.

It just shows that MS cannot compete

[QuietLagoon]

From TFA In short, the impact of the "VCast Music Dirty Little Secret" may or may not imapct Verizon legally, however, it will cause consumer confusion, and Microsoft and Verizon's primary answer is to purchase a Windows Media Player 10 PC and "migrate" to it so your phone will work with your music.

Microsoft needs to force its media player upon Verizon customers because they would not select it if they had a choice.

False Advertising...

[Sr. Pato]

Why call it an MP3 Phone, if it doesn't play MP3s?

That's like KFC advertising Big Macs but giving you a piece of chicken...
... It's still food, just not the food you wanted.

Re:False Advertising...

[jwilcox154]

That is because there are those who use 'MP3' for any compressed music format. This is a similar concept to people calling any facial tissue 'Kleenex' or bandages 'Band-Aids'. Verizon is going to capitalize on that, as a lot of people have heard of MP3, not as many have heard of WMA.

Re:False Advertising...

[saihung]

That's like KFC advertising Big Macs but giving you a piece of chicken... ... It's still food, just not the food you wanted.

Um, neither of those things are "food."

Re:False Advertising...

[Sr. Pato]

Hah... you, good sir, have never tried Taco Bell. If you ever want to get out of work one day and you need proof (or a Doctor's note), just eat a "Cheesy Gordita Crunch".

Yumm Yumm...

... Not until it comes out the other side... or back the top.

I swear, their meat is just sand, boiled in toilet water, and wrapped in recycled tortillas.

Re:False Advertising...

[stuuf]

That's like KFC advertising Big Macs

No, that's called trademark infringement

If people want MP3

[a_greer2005]

They likely already have an MP3 player.

Can the damn thing make a call and last 3 days in standby? if so then 98% of customers will be happy.

Re:If people want MP3

[EvilJoker]

Actually, I don't have an MP3 player, because my phone handles it just fine. (LG VX8100 V04, 1GB card)

Oh and, most people don't just want a phone- they want all sorts of stuff. Hence, the options are changing to match.

Re:I realize this is a concept for cell providers.

[Carthag]

I really liked my Nokia 3510i, I am getting that one again next time I need to get a new one. The one I have now is worthless (one button for menu and dial? SO ANNOYING).

Huh, my mobile is cheap

[denjin]

I have a phone through Cingular (old ATT plan, though). US $40.00/mo for 1,000 anytime minuts. On top of it, I can call the UK for just $0.06/min. You can't tell me that isn't cheap.

Re:Huh, my mobile is cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

verizon wireless 1400 minute americas choice familyshareplan 109 a month with 3 phones

calls to canada are 49 cents a minute, but they are part of north america. they dont tell you this until you get the outrageous bill where you pay 49 cents for what costs them less than 4.9 cents

fuck vzw

Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you get what you pay for I guess. If you hate DRM you would never use Apple products. If you hate DRM you would use Linux. And then even if you were a linux user I am sure you would be smart enough to have a Windows machine around as a toolbox. You can do anything with Windows. You can do anything with Linux. With enough effort you should never have to leave a Linux environment. If you are truly lazy just boot up Windows, it won't kill you for God's sake.

Re:Well

[dangitman]

If you hate DRM you would never use Apple products. If you hate DRM you would use Linux.

Only if DRM (or the lack of it) was your primary reason for buying a computer. Is that true for anybody except Richard Stallman? Most people have other things as higher priorities whejn buying a computer - things like productivity. So why can't we hate DRM and still buy Apple products? My hatred for DRM doesn't override everything else in my life. There are things I like about Linux, but there are things I hate about it. I hate almost eveything about Windows. So MacOS has the fewest things to hate, IMO. No OS or application is perfect.

Why can't Linux phones do whatever you want?

[dara]

I don't yet own a (U.S.) cell phone, but I've been looking at some of the Linux smartphones as they come out. I was really hoping I could eventually get one that was like a phone attached to a general purpose computer (possibly with a small hard drive - or maybe flash will be good enough by then). In that case, I could install whatever mp3 player I want and get the phone to follow exactly the protocol I want when the call comes in (e.g., lower the volume, tell me who is calling before I pick up, ...). Is this unrealistic? Does anyone have a feeling on who the first U.S. provider to offer service on this type of Linux phone will be? Anyone outside of the U.S. doing something similar now?

Dara

Re:Why can't Linux phones do whatever you want?

[octopus72]

Manufacturers don't want to offer cheap open platform because it can be competition with their expensive, advanced, "niche" phones. Service providers probably fear of VoIP on mobile phones which could down their income significantly.

Useless

[sulli]

And they wonder why Apple is kicking their ass. Hint: it's not the iTunes Music Store.

Would this include hte new Palm 700w

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Would this include hte new Palm 700w or other Windows Mobile smartphones?? I could care less either way. My regular phone isn't for listening to music. My iPod is. My iPod is far superior to any MP3 playing phone. The only phone that may be better at playing MP3's is a smartphone and if the included software doesn't do it there are plenty of free programs that accomplish the same thing.

Re:Powers that be?

[vertinox]

Well, yeah, but it's equally relevant that there's no DRM with MP3s. Microsoft and Verizon are Big Businesses (TM). They can't afford to tick off the Powers That Be (TM).

Um... I thought Microsoft and Verizon were powers that be. I'm pretty sure the collective might of Verizon and Microsoft are larger than the RIAA. This is a bit more of control on MS's terms. Remember computer software sales are more than movie and music sales in total money value put together.

If Microsoft wanted to beat down the RIAA it would have more money backing and more lawyers and the potential to destroy any DRM schemes that Sony or anyone else wants to put on Windows. (They made the OS after all) Sony might call foul and claim anti-monopoly practices though.

But the main reason they want WMA is that WMA forces persons to use the Windows Media player which usually tends to be for Windows. (Yeah there is a Mac version but it blows ass and videos run slow for some unknown reason and it tends to be a stripped down version.)

So MS isn't playing ball here, they are doing this for themselves and getting verizon to play along.

Makes me glad I hacked my E815.

[TellarHK]

About two months ago I was deciding whether or not to get a RAZR or an E815 through Verizon, as I didn't have much of a choice in carriers. It took a short while, but I eventually decided to go with the E815, because it was more easily known to be a moddable phone. Unlocked using relatively easy instructions found online, I was able to get it working to play MP3's just fine as ringtones or whatever. Also enabled basic OBEX and DUN over Bluetooth, though none of the 'push' features. Once unlocked, the phone becomes a lot more useful to people with non-Windows systems, though you do need a USB cable and some special software (that isn't difficult to find) to hex-edit the phone in order to free things up.

I figure this kind of modification is perfectly legitimate, as it doesn't take anything away from Verizon that they're obligated to. Any time I spend on the net with the phone uses minutes, and any feature I unlocked simply enables me to use the handset with -my- other electronics. I do wish Verizon would stop this crap and start offering services like the rest of the world can get them, but so long as they'll lock things down, we'll try and unlock them.

Email them

[XB-70]

If you want something done, start contacting Verizon and make some noise.
Here: Mark Marchand, Director, Media Relations, (518) 396-1080
Email: mailto:mark.a.marchand@verizon.com
Also, contact your government representative and make some noise there too. This sort of thing is going on way, way too much - if we make ourselves annoying as hell to deal with, they will take notice.

the summary is misleading.

[User 956]

Is it possible to downgrade the firmware to pre v05 so that you can play mp3s still ?

Many smartphones, like the PalmOS Treo, will play MP3s regardless of deals Microsoft and Verizon make. Bittorrent->SD_Card and you're done.

Shit like "Vcast" is proprietary, excessively limited, overpriced, and thus, doomed to failure.

Re:I realize this is a concept for cell providers.

[nxtw]

I suggest trying Sony Ericsson again. They've improved greatly (although I use Nokia). The Nokia 3650 and Sony Ericsson T610 are both close to 3 years old now.

I've used the Sony Ericsson Z520a and W600i, both recently released Sony Ericsson phones, and the audio quality and reception is much, much better than any Motorola I've used and the old Sony Ericssons. I haven't experienced any drops on the Cingular network (vastly superior to T-Mobile here) since I stopped using Motorola. In general, the UI is faster on Sony Ericsson and Nokia phones, especially when you try to do things like send a text message, use the web browser, or play games. It's also much easier to use.

I have not owned a Samsung phone for over 2 years, but my mom's Samsung P107's UI is very fast.

I am now using a Nokia 6682, and it's better than every other phone I've used (with the exception of the size/weight, but I don't mind.)

If the company doesn't give a d@mn...

[oDDmON oUT]

about their employees, outside the highest levels of management, what makes you think they'd give a flip about their customers?

Just go get a damn new Nokia brick.

[slappyjack]

When I was in London for a few months I used a Nokia 6630 for a while and it really showed me what a craptastic system we have here. That phone was great. Mini MMC chip with some sweet headphones that allowed me to listen to music on the Tube and a document reader so I could put books on the thing and read them while listening to my music (only put a chapter at a time in a file, though - large files tended to cause the thing to choke.) Bluetooth file transfer between phones allowed us all to swap files without pain.

The first thing I did when I got back to the States is go straight to the Nokia website and get myself a 6682. Nice fat chunk of phone, big screen, good camera, basic office software (that I never use), useful calendar and todo list (that you can have listed permanently on the screen) and a nifty little MP3 player. One trip to the local electronics superbox and for $65 my phone can now hold half a gig of data (Dual-Voltage Half Sized MMC, little pricier than the standard ones). Thats roughly 600 pretty good sized images or more songs than that goofy Rokr will hold.

Call sound quality is great, even when using the stereo headset.

Contacts are stored as vCards, which - after a little scripting - works very well with my contacts on my PC for synchronizing data.

The only BAD thing I can think of with this phone is that when you plug it into a USB port it wont show up as a USB drive on the computer. You need the Nokia drivers, and transfer rates could maybe be better, but otherwise its just like another little drive on a windows box.

The website says it'll only work with Cingular, which is the service I have, and it a total bunch of bullshit. Just to test it I pulled my friends t-mobile card and popped it into my phone and it worked just fine.

The battery? Huge. One charge lasts me about a week with just talking, 2-3 days if I listen to music and take photos a lot.

All this goodness in a phone about the size of a pack of smokes, and you dont have to unfold the goddamn thing. Those Finns have their shit together, and I won't buy anything else from now on.

and all of this without silly commercials containing dancin' hipsters!

Re:Powers that be?

[TallMatthew]

If Microsoft wanted to beat down the RIAA it would have more money backing and more lawyers and the potential to destroy any DRM schemes that Sony or anyone else wants to put on Windows.

Somewhere Orrin Hatch just raised an eyebrow.

No company can position themselves in digital music distribution without DRM, at least not in today's political climate. Microsoft made their choice and is running with it; their intention is not to rid the world of MP3s, nor to convert the world's MP3s to WMAs. They want the partnerships and the file conversion is more likely a condition of the RIAAs than their desire to lock out Mac/Linux users.

Article's claim that Apple is any better is a lie

[geekee]

from the article:
"As far as we can analyze, Microsoft made an agreement to enginner VCast Music phones as WMA-only devices, in order to lock out iTunes and other competition from most interaction with the device that does not involve burning, ripping, and integrating into Windows Media Player. This type of monopolist tatic is something that iTunes has avoided, but Windows Media Player embraces."

Apple has used every tactic avaliable to lock in their music monopolies. Their iPods don't support WMA, even though the hardware they use does support it. They don't license their fairplay DRM to anyone else to allow competitors to sell DRMed music for iPod users. To say Apple is acting any better than Microsoft is a lie.

Creative doing the same

[edxwelch]

Also, Creative are starting to put PlayForSure firmware on their devices. This means that any software that accesses the player has to use the WMP 10 drivers. Of coarse, you can still play MP3s, but you won't be able to access the device from Mac, Linux, nor Windows 2000.
Previously Creative used their own drives an any OS could access the devices.

your .sig

[dangitman]

Running Linux is like owning a Lightsaber. It's "a more elegant weapon for a more civilized time."

Linux is many things, but "elegant" is not one of them.

Re:your .sig

[Tough Love]

> > Running Linux is like owning a Lightsaber. It's "a more elegant weapon for a more civilized time."
>
> Linux is many things, but "elegant" is not one of them.

What do you know about it?

Re:your .sig

[dangitman]

Well, a lightsaber is supposedly a simple and pure instrument that is powerful in the right hands. Linux fails just on the simplicity front. Any computer system or OS does. They are collaborative efforts and contain layers upon layers of historical complexity. This is rather unavoidable.

Re:Article's claim that Apple is any better is a l

[dangitman]

What? nobody is forcing you to buy tracks from Apple - the iPod allows the free use of unencumbered formats like MP3 and WAV. Microsoft sees this as a threat, and wants you to stop using "free" formats so they can force WMA and DRM on people. Apple isn't doing any forcing - just offering an option. If you want to play WMA, you are free to buy one of the many other players on the market.

Sprint is an Acronym

[Baricom]

Thanks for teaching me something new today. I had no idea Sprint was an acronym. I'm sorry I don't have any mod points for you.

real wifi VoIP = Hitachi WirelessIP5000

[citizenr]

http://www.hitachi-cable.co.jp/en/hc-news/358/chap ter_2-1.html
Skype is a kids IM toy

Re:I realize this is a concept for cell providers.

[EvilJoker]

That all depends on carrier, and exact model. On Verizon, LG is usually viewed as tops for reception, with most Motorolas being poor. The exception is the e815, which is supposed to be one of the best ever released on VZW.

On Sprint, it's mostly Sanyo and Samsung at the top, with LG being at the bottom. Similar for Cingular.

(disclaimer: longtime LG fan on VZW)

bye bye Verizon

[planetfinder]

My last interaction with Verizon customer service
was the beginning of the end of my relationship with
them. They are a bunch idiots hired by a bunch of idiots.
Just pray that you never need to call their customer
support or service department.
If they want to give M$ a blowjob then thats fine with me.
The final blast will probably kill their last brain cell.

Re:I realize this is a concept for cell providers.

[Fishstick]

>I wonder how many consumers really want to use their phone as an mp3 player anyway?

The hick that saw that he could listen to Dukes of Hazard themesong, for a start. ;-)

Surprised?!?

[deesto]

Anyone who currently owns a Verizon phone/contract should not be surprised in the least by this news. The service provider touts the multimedia capabilities of certain handsets (such as Motorola's e815 and its predecessors), while neglecting to inform the subscriber that these abilities are disabled in their phones. And as a coproration, they aren't exactly apologetic of their shady tactics of drawing in new users. It's a shame that a provider with such feature-rich and widespread network capabilities feels no remorse in deceiving their customers; in this story, at least they are forward in announcing the future limitations implicit in this deal with MS.