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T-Mobile Bans Others' Apps On Their Phones
cshamis writes "T-Mobile has recently changed their policies and now tell their customers with appropriate data plans and with Java-Micro-App-capable T-Mobile phones: no third-party network applications. You can, of course, still use their incredibly clunky and crippled built-in WAP browsers, but GoogleMaps and OperaMini are left high and dry. Would anyone care to speculate if this move is likely to retain or repel customers?"
They'll just see the flashy commercials and cheap phones and cheap prices and they'll snap up what they're force-fed without realizing they can do better. Face it. People (in general) are stupid in the USA.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Seems T-Mobile might is trying to act the evil (/good depends on point of view) sys-admin here.
I guess some people will like that, and it will probably increase security for the phone, third party network applications would include all kinds of malware if I understand it correctly.
Anyhow the problem with "sys-admins" is that if they start bothering the boss because he can not play whatever little game used to play and things like this they don't last for long in the job.
Only problem is that costumers are not employees here, in that sense they are all bosses so of course T-mobile is also going to loose some costumers on this.
I don't think it will be that big a percent of costumers they loose, I personally don't use my phone for anything than talking and those pesky SMS-messages. I don't think the use of WAP is all that widespread yet, so the earlier the better to try and implement a strategy like this, before people begin getting to happy with different third party apps. Perhaps this is going to count in the positive direction for T-mobile in the long run when malware gets more and more widespread on phones, it will make T-mobile different from other network providers which might be a good thing (at least outside Germany where they have the advantage of being the biggest player).
Now it's the time switch to Cingular, and get and iPhone, to continue using my 3rd party applications. oh wait...
1. Piss off your customers
2. Lose them to competitors
3. ?
4. Profit!
Testing some T-Mobile phones recently, I once again ran into T-Mobile's annoying policy of banning third-party applications from accessing the Internet on their phones. Like so many infringements on our liberties, this started stealthily with a few devices but now covers their entire product line.
Geez... has the author considered calling them up trying to get out of his contract or if he doesn't have one, to simply cancel and move to another carrier?
What's that? T-Mobile's data plan costs less? Sounds to me like one is gettign what one paid for.
Infringements on our liberties. Puh-leez.... Yeah, I rate this right up their with warrantless wiretapping by the government.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
The people who know better can fix their phones (most of you probably unlocked your phone already, or bought it unlocked from a third party). The people who don't, don't care anyway.
What makes you think that won't be the case eventually?
I mean, the only alternative is that they are lying, greedy scumbags, and I wouldn't want to think that about anybody.
Sure, I'll speculate my foot up T-Mobile's monopolistic ass. How's my speculation now?
I'm posting AC because I'm pretty sure my job officially requires me to "support our partners." Basically, I work in a tech support field where I deal with reps from pretty much all carriers in North America.
I can't vouch for all areas, but at least in terms of tech support for what I work with, T-Mobile is undeniably awful. They neglect basic steps that a first-day-on-the-job trainee at my workplace would know off by heart, routinely plunk customers into our call queues (which have zero hold time) without staying on the line to tell us what the issue is or what they've done, and sometimes they don't even tell the customer they're transferring to us - so the customer just gets put on hold, and when someone picks up again, he doesn't know what just happened or why he's talking to someone else.
They have a terrible lack of knowledge of their own systems, and zero knowledge of ours, when their jobs are meant to require full knowledge of both. My company is supposed to be offering the next tier of support for their customers, but it's gotten to where we are basic T-Mobile support, along with upper-tier support for all other carriers.
This policy of blocking things isn't new to them either. For instance, T-Mobile arbitrarily ruled that you cannot set up a Hotmail/MSN/Windows Live Mail email account on their devices (smartphones and BlackBerries and the like) that support it. Why? Who knows. My best guess is that it is because T-Mobile and AOL are owned by the same parent company and they are trying to make it inconvenient to use other email services, but I have no idea.
Best technical support is by far offered by one of the Canadian carriers, Rogers. They have awful customer service and billing policies though. But they sure as hell know how to fix anything.
Strange. Sprint never charged me a red cent more for downloading and using Google Maps. I do have an unlimited "Sprint PCS vision" plan, though. If you don't have this, you'll pay a penny a kB no matter who's content you use.
...and as of right now, Google Maps still works.
I have Skype on my T-Mobile dash.
It works OK on an EDGE data connection but the call has pretty high latency (feels like a satelite connection). Works like a charm on Wifi though - it's just really confusing having a phone application running on your phone.
I hope no one from Sprint is paying attention but using a PPC-6700 on a plan with unlimited data access but no extra "modem tethering" plan it's still possible to use your phone as a dial-up modem. This frees you up to use your laptop on the internet anywhere in their coverage area without an extra card or extra cost. Nothing beats a full size browser with Javascript. Verizon sells the same phone as the VX6700 but from what I hear they had a firmware update that "fixed" it.
Try these:
http://www.importgsm.com/home.php and http://www.ebay.com/ (search for 'unlocked gsm' or whatever phone you're looking for.)
Buy the cheapest phone available from cingular or T-mobile, then transfer the SIM card to your new unlocked phone. Done.
Sascha Segan (author): "Tony, I maybe didn't make clear enough that this is a feature phone problem. No carrier, not even Verizon, dares forbid application installation on smartphones such as Blackberries, Windows Mobile phones, or Treos."
Um, this isn't quite the sky is falling scenario he makes it out to be in the article. Of course, any bad publicity it generates is still a good thing.
I bought my GSM phone (Motorola v620) from eBay, then flashed and flexed it to my liking. I even modded it so my name appears on the outside LCD.
So many different companies offer unlocking, you shouldn't have any problem getting an unbranded phone or a phone unlocked.
Europe has phones that are much cooler then what's offered in the States.
Strange. So much for having 3rd party developers support their phones and produce programs and apps that make customers want to buy their phones and data plans.
Personally, I will never buy another Get It Now enabled Verizon phone. Its expensive. The programs suck.
Ever since I got my Treo and can put my own custom Palm apps on it, the service has been so much better and I have even upgraded to the data plan to use these apps.
Bryan
Well, if you're under contract, you can probably break it with this change.
Not true at all. Not only does Sprint not charge more, but they have a completely open policy towards 3rd party apps. The only thing they'll do is nag you when installing a new app with a warning that this might be dangerous. Other than that, there isn't any impediment.
And there's no attempt to lock down bluetooth. They tried locking it with one of their first BT-capable phones but then they did something very surprising for a cell phone company: they listened to customer complaints and offered a firmware update to unlock it and haven't locked it on any of the current models, as far as I know.
They're pretty flexible with data plans. Since my unlimited data is for a phone, not for one of their wireless cards, I'm not supposed to use it extensively with a computer. But after the DSL went out for three days, I used the 3G phone as a replacement connection and had it connected for almost the entire 3 days. No complaints from them and no extra charges.
So I'm surprised they're not a more popular company with the geek crowd. As far as I can see, they're the least restrictive of any of the major American carriers.
And now that I've said something nice about a cell phone company, they'll probably implement some terrible policy tomorrow.
SPs (or phone companies) have ligitimate reasons to be concerned about what you run.
No; they have illegitimate reasons. We should have an inalienable right to communicate as we wish, by whatever means we wish. Corporate control of our communication is a guaranteed disaster for everyone but the owners of the corporation.
In particular, the main design goal of the Internet was to end the traditional stranglehold of equipment suppliers and comm companies over communication. Look up the early docs of the ARPAnet; its primary design goal was to make it possible for any piece of equipment from any vendor to communicate with any other piece of equipment from any other vendor. The vendors had always blocked such universal communication, and the US's Dept of Defense was fed up with it. The companies that supply the equipment still put any roadblocks they can in the way of communicating with their competitors' equipment. The phone companies are especially good at this, at least here in the US.
It's true that this is very easy to understand why the companies would be concerned with what we run on our machines. But this concern is not in any reasonable sense legitimate. It's the worst possible way you could run a comm system. We should continue to fight it any way we can.
The only legitimate restrictions should be that malformed packets may be dropped, and "bandwidth hogs" may be throttled to a reasonable speed limit (i.e., whatever speed they've paid for). But note that such restrictions have little if anything to do with what software you or I may be running. Or with the content of our data packets, for that matter.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I use an HTC Trinity P3600 and this will NOT affect me. I also tether my laptop to my P3600 (bluetooth or USB) and I will also not be limited.
This is ONLY if you use T-Mobile branded phones. I called my customer retention agent and she confirmed over and over that this will NOT affect third party bought phones, which is the only way to play unless you want to try to buy an outdated phone of T-Mobiles at a discount price.
FUD, FUD, FUD. I love my T-Mobile phone and I travel to 13 states to do business, plus I work in Europe and Asia regularly and my phone works fine there with my T-Mobile SIM (albeit pricey but it works fine).
Perhaps the problem with cell phone networks in general is that they were designed in a closed environment with a need for profit.
Compare cell phone networks to the Internet which was designed mostly by scientists and engineers in an academic, peer reviewed environment with the simple goal of building an efficient network.
If the Internet had been designed phone companies, you'd by your computer from you're ISP and it probably wouldn't work with any other ISP, your ISP bill would list every site you visited that month, overseas sites would be charged at a higher rate, and DNS would probably be sold as a 'white pages' lookup service where they could charge you a penny for every click.
Phone systems are just plain dumb and the people who run them are concerned more with nickel and diming you for every trivial service they can think of than they are in building good network infrastructure.
The FCC is largely to blame for this because they choose to auction off the airways to the highest bidder almost without regard as to how that bidder is going use the medium.
I'm no fan of big government but if we're going to have regulation, then let's do the thing right. Let's require cell phone companies to provide mobile IP addresses and let anybody access their network with the hardware and software of his own choosing. Let the consumer buy *airtime*, nothing more, and let the consumer decide whether he'll use voice, download music, stream video, text message, etc., just like we do with landline companies.
Uhm, that's weird.
Seeing as this morning my office gave me a brand new Blackberry 8700G (Edge network, fast processor) and the first thing I did was install Google Maps.
It installed with Zero problems, and it runs great.
So... what's this about banning third party apps?
Up until last week Google maps and Gmail both worked on my T-Mobile branded phone. Now they don't. No FUD, they really didn't just start blocking this stuff.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Technologically less educated people in those case just believe the salesperson and assume it is "not compatible" with certains apps (which it is, but on purpose), but buy it anyway because it looks shiny or has a 3 megapixel camera.
"Words of wisdom: drop that zero and get with the hero" -- Vanilla Ice
A Palm or PocketPC. Both offer a free development platform and no cost distribution.
Actually, once your contract finishes and you move to a month-to-month plan, the phone is legally yours. If you request it, the carrier is legally obligated to give you an unlock code.
-b.
Seriously, as a current T-Mobile customer, where else am I going to go? I've still got over a year on my 2 year enslavement contract. Even when it's over, where do I go? Cingular? They play nice with the NSA, their customer service is terrible, and their QoS in my area is crap. Verizon? They've been crippling their phones for years. Sprint? Decent data plans, but they're CDMA which means device lock-in by definition. US Cellular? Also CDMA lock-in.
I just want a good GSM carrier in the US that will give me a family plan, a decent data plan, a non-insane lock-in, and half-way decent phones. Or hell, give me decent plans at a good enough price and I'll buy my own damned phones as God intended. Just sell me a SIM card and don't bankrupt me to use it, then stay out of my way. Is that so much to ask?
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
Since when? AOL is part of Time Warner, T-Mobile is the US branch of Deutsch Telekom. Now while DT did or does manage the AOL Germany service, AOL is not part of T-Mobile.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
This idiotic policy doesn't even work in T-Mobile's interests. Third party software encourages people to use data services, which encourages them to sign up for data plans, which makes T-Mobile money. A more liberal policy on mobile apps also might help the nation's #4 carrier win customers away from control freaks like Verizon, with their strictly limited set of applications.
The third party software they're afraid of is VOIP software that encourages people to use data services as a replacement for their overpriced phone plans.
(Why are there 160 comments above mine with no mention of this?)
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
There's quite a few angry T-Mobile users out there over this. Just because T-Mobile hasn't released an "official" word on the matter doesn't mean it hasn't happened. And yes, I do use T-Mobile and this restriction only just recently became active in the central Florida area. And also yes, I know T-Mobile isn't *just* in the US, but we're talking about T-Mobile's service in the US. So, if it's working for you over in Europe, that isn't very relevent, sorry.
Of course, you can easily prove that the story is true yourself. Ask a friend who lives in the areas where this has already taken effect, has T-Mobile and only pays for the $5.99 plan if he/she can still access anything with Opera Mini. I'll bet you $5.99, he/she can't.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Two year contract says RETAIN.
First of all, yes, some T-Mobile branded phones had their firmware modified by T-Mobile to prevent third party applications from accessing T-Mobile's data network. This has been going on for awhile, and really isn't news.
What T-Mobile has done recently, is a slow regional rollout of port blocking. You see, T-Mobile offers a $5.99 WAP access add-on, and a far more expensive "full internet access" add-on. What is happening is that people who bought unlocked/unbranded phones without T-Mobile's silly restrictions are finding that T-Mobile's $5.99 WAP plan just won't work any more for 3rd party apps which need unrestricted access to the Internet. The restrictions stopped just being in T-Mobile's phones. Now, as Verizon is so fond of saying, "It's the network."
There's quite a few threads about this started over at HowardForums, and it is very real. If you think you're sitting pretty because it hasn't happened to you yet, you've been warned. The only way you're safe is if you're already on one of T-Mobile's "full internet" plans (Blackberry, Sidekick, Phone-as-Modem, etc.).
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
All PocketPCs that I'm aware of have a D-pad. I'm fairly certain all modern PalmOS devices do as well. Smartphones have the same capability to install software as any other PC. They may or may not have additional OTA capability. Otherwise, I don't get what you're getting at. No one is "forced" to do anything. The barrier to entry is high if you want to publish a DS or PSP game, sure, but that's life and gaming systems are luxury items.
This story is only about the US T-mobile network (there is no way the European parts of T-mobile would try this). Slashdot has an international readership, so why not make it clear in the write-up that it is about the US part of T-mobile?