Verizon Removes Search Choices For BlackBerrys

shrugger writes "I picked up my BlackBerry this morning to do a search and noticed Bing as my default search engine. I thought this was very strange, since I didn't pick this setting. I went to change it back to Google and, to my chagrin, Bing was my only option! Apparently Verizon has pushed an update that removes all search providers except Bing. Thanks a lot Verizon!" The Reg notes: "The move is part of the five-year search and advertising deal Verizon signed with Microsoft in January for a rumored $500m."

Comments

Do you hear me now??

[kiloechonovember]

Oh we hear you Verizon, apparently you just don't care.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"We don't have to care, we're the phone company."

Re:Do you hear me now??

[lorenlal]

Go download the Google app in the meantime.

My initial reaction is just pure anger. I have settings, I like those settings. To have them just overwritten, and to take away my choice of a search provider just reeks to me. BTW - Way to go pushing that Google Android based phone, and then piss off your BB users with a Bing deal.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Pharmboy]

Ruth Buzzy was right.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[E IS mC(Square)]

If I had option of Droid on T-Mobile, I would get one today. The only reason I did not get one is Verizon. I am not willing to sell my soul to either Verizon or AT&T - even if that means not carrying a mobile phone altogether.

Thank god for T-Mobile.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Anonymous Coward]

Lily Tomlin, you mean. :-)

Re:Do you hear me now??

[ta bu shi da yu]

Ah, the wonderful sound of thousands of cancelled contracts! Nothing quite like it.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[darthflo]

There you go. It's a Moto Droid with quadband GSM instead of CDMA innards. Put any T-Mobile SIM in there and you're good to go. If you're getting a contract anyways, you may want to get one of their $1 phones and eBay it to get some of those $600 back.

Let me know how you like it!

Re:Do you hear me now??

[slashchuck]

Waiting for Nexus One.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[gavron]

If you're happy with TMO in your area, the Nokia N900 is a better choice than the Droid.

I have both, and while I love VZW's coverage, I love the N900 UI.

E
P.S. I'm keeping the N900 for Intl travel... and using the VZW Droid for here where I need to be able to make and hold a call...

Re:Do you hear me now??

[causality]

Go download the Google app in the meantime.

My initial reaction is just pure anger. I have settings, I like those settings. To have them just overwritten, and to take away my choice of a search provider just reeks to me. BTW - Way to go pushing that Google Android based phone, and then piss off your BB users with a Bing deal.

The law should allow you to cancel your contract with no early termination penalty of any sort anytime the telco unilaterally and irreversibly reduces the phone's configuration like this. This behavior should legally negate any "terms subject to change without notice" clauses. It's a form of bait-and-switch, because when you bought the phone you were able to decide which search service to use and now that decision has been removed without your consent after you signed the contract.

If it only applied to new phones with new contracts, or to existing customers whose contracts are renewing (and thus can be terminated with no penalty) I'd feel differently about it. It's waiting until you are locked into a contract with specific expectations and then reducing (instead of improving) the functionality of the device mid-term that I have a problem with.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[yakumo.unr]

Totally agree, wish i had mod points today.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[E IS mC(Square)]

Thanks. Did not think about that option.

But two problems:
1. Will definitely have to get a phone on contract and ebay it - if I am on their network for long time, I would rather I use their subsidy. And I am not good at ebaying stuff.
2. (More importantly) Unfortunately, the phone wont be able to use T-Mobile 3G network. Here is more detail on it - http://forums.t-mobile.com/t5/Non-T-Mobile-Devices/Motorla-Milestone-GSM-ver-of-Verizon-Droid-A855/td-p/272760

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Anonymous Coward]

Try a n900 then, it works on all t-mobile freqs. Its missing one of the att 3G bands though.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[zizzo]

Agreed. If you are affected you should probably contact the FCC or the FTC and complain about this.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[peragrin]

ah but they doubled their termination fee. now it is cheaper to get a divorce than to pay verizon to get out of the contract.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[sbeckstead]

Losing choice is a pretty good reason to chuck a carrier I don't care how good bing's privacy is or isn't.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[darthflo]

What a pity. Well, I agree with the AC above, then. Go for an N900.
On that note, does anyone around here have some experience with Android vs Maemo over-the-air sync? Android seems to have full two-way push sync for mails, contacts and calendar; Maemo (through Nokia Messaging) seems limited to IMAP IDLE for GMail and not support contacts/calendars. Is this right or am I missing something?

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird that this roughly coincides with Verizon's doubling of the early termination fee, isn't it?

Re:Do you hear me now??

[shentino]

Can you actually switch over something like this?

Who is betting that Verizon will try to rake in ETF's?

Re:Do you hear me now??

[shentino]

I hope that locking you into a search provider is sufficient grounds to void the contract.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[tenton]

Divorce her and leave her the phone. That'll teach her.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[cvtan]

and I have a bluetooth phone where all the file transfer functions have been locked out. Thanks Verizon!!!

Re:Do you hear me now??

[hack slash]

$350 to break contract early? now that's just bat-shit insane, do you still have to pay to receive text messages? if I had to then I'd never have a mobile phone, I spend so little on calls/messages I'm practically non-existant to the phone companies.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[amRadioHed]

I'm in the same boat. I've had Verizon before and I'm not going back.

Maybe the rumored to soon be available for T-Mo Google phone will finally be a suitable upgrade, although I really would like a keyboard.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[CodeBuster]

Ah, the wonderful sound of thousands of cancelled contracts! Nothing quite like it.

Which won't happen because just about everyone who wanted the iphone or out of Verizon for some other reason has already bailed. The people who are left are there for the coverage or to put it more bluntly, it's the network stupid. They will piss and moan and grumble about it but it will not be enough to get them to switch because they chose Verizon for the network ; not because they had the best smartphones. Verizon is doing this because they can and their customers will like it that way. Verizon a bully? who knew....right.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[rdavidson3]

Oh, but you can. ;)

http://roaminghack.blogspot.com/
http://www.ucan.org/telecommunications/wireless/how_to_cancel_your_cell_phone_contract

I am in the process of getting off of Bell Canada and none too soon. I moved within Calgary, and the area I am in has poor coverage, so the phone drops calls continuously. After calling Bell to complain about the coverage, even though the coverage map says my area of the city is good, they said that I couldn't quit them since I didn't get their permissions to move (huh???), and its my fault the phone works periodically.
Anywho, I asked to get a supervisor and he got me off the rest of the contract and heading over to a new provider (http://www.windmobile.ca/) in the new year, and their rates are fantastic.... just hope they don't treat the customers like crap.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[russ1337]

Just do what I do when you have mod points: dump all the comments into a spreadsheet to sort them by rank then mod the top 4.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Skreems]

What? But the 'Droid is so AWESOME! It's got all those shiny red lights and mechanical arms and giant bulky keyboard, and it insults the fuck out of other phones! How could you not want to be a part of that???

Re:Do you hear me now??

[FatdogHaiku]

Well, Ruth Buzzy was right too, just not about the phone company.
Dean Martin called her the funniest woman he ever worked with...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m56mtrDTHPQ&NR=1

Re:Do you hear me now??

[s73v3r]

Shouldn't this fall under changing the contract? You are now locked into using Bing as your search provider, which is a restriction that was not present when you originally signed the contract, which means that it has changed. You should be able to terminate ETF-free, although it'll definitely take some fighting to do so if you're the first.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[s73v3r]

Don't even do that. T-Mobile now has plans specifically designed for people who are bringing their own phones, and don't need the subsidized phone. They're about $10/month cheaper than the plans with the subsidized phone, and no contract.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Jaxoreth]

In Soviet Russia, sharks with lasers welcome YOU!

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Kral_Blbec]

You have 30 days after a policy change to cancel a contract without paying the ETF.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[v1]

Looking on the bright side, everyone that's pissed off about the bing lock-in has several weeks now to tell verizon to kiss off without getting totally robbed. I'd call that good timing on Verizon's part, for their (soon-to-be-ex)customers?

Re:Do you hear me now??

[rwa2]

Cool... just remember to contact t-Mobile to have your ebay phone unlocked before you sell it... there are some wonky restrictions, like you have to have it for two billing cycles or something like that before they'll give you the unlock code for your phone.

But also remember they have contractless pricing plans now too... so... just do the math first :P

Re:Do you hear me now??

[mysidia]

I wonder now if you could legally bypass the termination fee by claiming Verizon made a material change the conditions of service that was experienced during the 30-day trial/cool-down period, before the early termination fee could be active.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Fallen Kell]

Actually, if they changed it while you are under contract, you can terminate your existing contract with no questions asked (there is a time limit from when you are notified of the contract change). Anytime they change the services or add fees this consumer protection goes into effect. Your state may offer even more protection as well....

Re:Do you hear me now??

[redneckHippe]

I'm Waiting for Nexus Six (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicant)

Re:Do you hear me now??

[kjart]

Shouldn't this fall under changing the contract?

Presumably only if search providers were part of the contract (i.e. doubtful).

Re:Do you hear me now??

[zentigger]

I would be curious if the right to modify the data stored in the phone is covered under the contract. After all, you own the phone. Is this not a criminal violation? Did you explicitly grant them permission to access your compter and modify the data within? If that is not explicitly mentioned in the contract, could this not be seen as unauthorized computer access and subject to criminal prosecution under all sorts of "hacking" laws?

Re:Do you hear me now??

[AK Marc]

Read your contract. I'm sure that they state that they are allowed to change features (including removing functionality) any any time for any reason and you can't do anything about it. I found that in my last AT&T contract. As long as it dials when you punch numbers, your "phone" contract holds. The data stuff is like an add on that they could remove/block and you are still on the hook for the phone service for the rest of the contract.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[AK Marc]

The law should allow you to cancel your contract with no early termination penalty of any sort anytime the telco unilaterally and irreversibly reduces the phone's configuration like this.

Should and does are unrelated. The contract is for phone service. The data part is bonus part, and when I last read my AT&T contract, they could update my phone (including removing services) and it was within the contract. If the phone won't dial, then they broke the contract. But trust me, the contract he signed lets them do such things. And if you don't trust me, then have him read his own contract. It'll be in there.

It's waiting until you are locked into a contract with specific expectations and then reducing (instead of improving) the functionality of the device mid-term that I have a problem with.

They all put that in. They all want to lock you in. And they all want to make sure they have the freedom of what happened here. There are none of them (the big ones) that I know of that don't have this in their contracts. You have no choice.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[foo fighter]

Why would you get T-Mobile in the US? Apparently you have never left the large American city in which you live?

Re:Do you hear me now??

[codepunk]

Anything can be placed in a contract however it may or may not be legally binding and or lawful.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I hear the sound of a thousand besuited weasels arguing that a "software enhancement, clarifying certain aspects of the search UI" is not a "policy change". Which is absolute bullshit, of course; but should be enough for some stonewalling.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[AK Marc]

Then it wouldn't be the law allowing you to cancel a contract, but instead the law invalidating the contract. You don't cancel an invalid contract (you can't, because it isn't actually a valid contract). And invalidating an entire contract on this point would be nearly impossible. Almost every contract includes severability, so even if that one part was considered invalid, the contract would still be in force. But in that case, you'd essentially have to sue them to get that provision removed. And without a court invalidating it, you are still bound by it for anything that matters (they'll still bill you, and if you don't pay the bill, you'll get your credit hit and such).

So yeah, I understand that you'd wish there'd be something in there to protect consumers, but I keep getting told that's socialist. If a consumer doesn't know everything already and have a team of 100 lawyers on their side, then they deserve what they get, or so I get told here by the Libertarians. Heck, the Libertarians say that if you don't like the contract, then you should haggle with the drone in the Verizon store for a new contract. They have yet to report any success, but apparently that's more likely to succeed than any of their fiscal policy.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[jesboat]

Let me elaborate a bit on a previous comment.

T-Mobile's ETF is $200. They can't offer you a subsidy of significantly more than $200, because then it would be to your advantage to buy a phone, cancel your contract, and sell the phone for a profit. Contract lengths are two years. Amortized over 2 years, by taking the subsidy, you save $8._33. Meanwhile, T-Mobile's has two tiers of plans. One gives you the subsidy, has a contract, and is $10 more a month. Thus: if you have the money up-front, buy your phone, save $240 in the cost of a plan over two years, and save yourself from a contract.

Consider the Motorola Cliq. As a user, it's a good phone.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[jesboat]

Maybe because it's decent in suburban areas, because it's significantly cheaper than AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon, because we don't mind roaming, and because T-Mobile is slightly less obviously run by assholes than the other three aforementioned companies?

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Svartalf]

In actuality, if you've got a PDA phone (i.e. a WinMo, BlackBerry, Palm, or Android...) you're required to get the PDA plan. That's a combined phone and data plan- that's typically unlimited.

As such, suppositions about the data part being a "bonus" are bogus.

I should know, I spend quite a bit of money on that specific plan- and if I had a BlackBerry, I'd be PO'ed at this point.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Achromatic1978]

You are not locked into using Bing. You can still use any search provider from the web browser, but the phone default for /its/ search app is Bing.

Shitty, but still.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[BitZtream]

Doesn't matter. Contracts can't override the law, regardless of how hard they try to make you think they can. They can say they have the right to change service at any time and that you can't terminate, but that is simply not true.

If the service materially changes, you can terminate the agreement, regardless of how many times they tell you that you can't.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[BitZtream]

Yea, they'll do something even faster if NO ONE complains though, right?

This sort of statement is fucking retarded.

They aren't going to do anything until someone complains, the more people that do the more likely they are to do something about it.

Take your 15 year old teenager angst and use it for something productive rather than whining about how no one cares about you.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[dissy]

but the phone default for /its/ search app is Bing.

Doesn't "default" imply the option it chooses if you do not select an option?
Doesn't that require "options"? Like more than one?

Re:Do you hear me now??

[tomstorey]

Unless you bought the phone outright, or brought it with you, a contract normally means the /provider/ owns the phone until the contract is up. You'll be paying off the phone as you go, and until its paid off, you dont own it, so theoretically the provider can do whatever they want to /their/ phone.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[shiva7663]

"and" not "or"

Re:Do you hear me now??

[vonWoland]

Sprint uses the very same CDMA towers as Verizon. Even if Verizon has more coverage, with Sprint's free roaming, I still have the exact same coverage as before I switched. Sprint, however, is cheaper, though arguably just as evil.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[mcvos]

Maybe the contract says that it's really their phone? Or, more likely, in the contract you give them explicit permission to mess with data on your phone. In which case I wonder if you shouldn't be able to revoke that permission.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[cerberusss]

What? But the 'Droid is so AWESOME! It's got all those shiny red lights and mechanical arms and giant bulky keyboard, and it insults the fuck out of other phones! How could you not want to be a part of that???

And it's soooo fast, it's like, race-horse-ducttaped-to-a-SCUD-missile-fast.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[linzeal]

Well to do that you are going to have to hire a lawyer.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Bert64]

T-mobile is run by the same kind of large monopolizing telco assholes, they just happen to be in germany instead...

Re:Do you hear me now??

[donaggie03]

Well to do that you are going to have to hire a lawyer.

No you wont. Simply request arbitration, in writing. They'll usually leave you alone after that.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Random5]

It's 350 (slightly prorated) to leave early because you paid $200 upfront for a 600-700$ phone. Well the figures vary depending on exactly what phone you have but you get the point.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[ProppaT]

Am I missing something here? Did they just change the default webpage? You can always just type in www.google.com or even, gasp, bing "google" to get to Google. It's actually the first hit when you do. This actually isn't new with Verizon at all, just possibly new to certain phones. All of my verizon phones over the years have had similar lockdown. I had to use bitpim to edit my old phones to force the default webpage to what I wanted.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[gbjbaanb]

Yep. you have 2 options:

1. Use bing as the default search engine
2. Stop using search.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[FlyingBishop]

This has nothing to do with the Droid. And you can bet if they try this sort of shit I'll walk, with my subsidized minicomputer in tow.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[b4dc0d3r]

Call and complain. Average cost per call, considering overhead, is anywhere from $20-$40 in the call center industry, even more if you have dedicated in-house support.

Prepare a complaint and read it, word for word, to the person you are talking to. Remember you are not talking to the person who made the policy, so refrain from profanity, yelling, and personal insults.

But do take the time, at length, to voice your displeasure. If you're the only one who calls, at least you tried. If a million others also call, they are going to look for what's driving all of these calls and fix it ASAP. Cos no one wants to pay for call center overtime, or ramping up staffing.

The trick is, let someone know you're unhappy and it might change. Keeping quiet guarantees it won't. Example: "Dear abby, I have a problem but I haven't told anyone about it because of some arbitrary reason. Answer: Tell them, simply and directly." It's in the newspaper every day - try it out once.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Andy Dodd]

At least in the past, Sprint required you to have more than a certain percentage of your usage be on Sprint towers.

Either way, never rely on roaming agreements for phone service. Roaming agreements break (often unofficially) - See, for example, the fact that T-Mobile service will become unavailable to anyone within 15 miles of where I live/work for months at a time, despite AT&T phones working perfectly and T-Mo supposedly having a roaming agreement.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Andy Dodd]

It's decent in suburban areas, but enjoy when you have to make an emergency call and your phone has no service.

The T-Mobile marketing that claims you can roam on AT&T towers is lies. Putting a T-Mobile SIM into a phone anywhere within 15 miles or so of where I live will result in that phone's IMEI being blacklisted with the tower for at least 15 minutes - even if you put an AT&T SIM back into the phone. (A SIM which received 5 bars of service prior to putting the T-Mo SIM into the phone.)

Or at least this was the case for the majority of the end of 2008/beginning of 2009. My ex was a T-Mo customer and her phone stopped working anywhere west of Exit 67 on New York State Route 17 (a major highway, soon to be Interstate 86). We put her SIM into my unlocked quadband GSM phone (AT&T Tilt) and it received no signal - even after swapping my SIM back in it wouldn't work for 15-20 minutes.

She managed to convince T-Mo to let her out of her contract without a penalty after that incident.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[drunkennewfiemidget]

As a canadian, you should know that *ANYTHING* would be better than those fucking scumbags at Rogers and Bell.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Rysc]

The only problem is that the n900 is not a phone.

Sure it has a phone app and can make calls, but it was clearly not designed to be a phone (or a camera, or a music player, or...)

What I mean is that it is not good at being a phone, even a smart phone; there are a lot of clunky UI issues to deal with. Fortunately the apps are starting to pour in, so that problem is going away.

I don't mean to be critical or anything. I bought an n900 and I like it, but the unwary consumer might not. It is not supposed to be a phone for someone who wants a phone. It's a handheld computer for someone who wants a handheld computer that also can make calls.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[mea37]

I'm pretty sure you'd have to show that having multiple options for the phone's built-in search feature was a material part of the service as defined by the contract. I'm also pretty sure you can't.

Something you'll want to keep in mind - because you can bet if it were argued in court that Verizon's lawyers would be pointing it out: This is a UI change, not a change in the total functionality available to the user. Can you still browse to google.com? If so, you may find it hard to convince a judge or jury that removal of a shortcut to access that functionality through the phone's menus matters one bit.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Runaway1956]

Why don't I hear "jailbreak" yet? I read this yesterday - and googled around a little. Didnt' see much - but apparently, it's possible.

Some people might like Bing. I'm sure there are at least a couple hundred, worldwide, who actually CHOSE Bing. The rest of the world that DOESN'T like Bing should be googling like mad.

Jail break the damned things!!! It's YOUR phone, after all.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Runaway1956]

I think Bing sucks basketballs through garden hoses. But, how has your service "materially" changed? Yesterday, you could browse the web, and do searches. Today, you can browse the web, and do searches.

Can you go to Google, and enter a search term? Can you set your homepage to iGoogle? Come on - you have to get more creative than this.

Oh yeah - google blackberry jailbreak. I did yesterday. Theres some moderately interesting stuff out there. I'm sure there will be more, as people get pissed at the Bing thing. ;^)

Re:Do you hear me now??

[alchemist68]

Don't pay the termination fee! Tell them you lost your job and your destitute. What are they going to do, pursue to the ends of the Earth and the end of your life? Big deal, they'll send threatening letters from collection agencies, and they'll ding your credit rating. So what! Your credit rating isn't worth as much these days in a bad economy. And over time you can rebuild it.

I was laid-off from the largest pharmaceutical company in the world in a round of massive lay-offs, lost my home to a short sale (yes, you, the American tax payer are paying for my mortgage), and after speaking with Certified Financial Advisors and Mortgage Crisis Counselors, Banks, companies, etc... have very little recourse to pursue you unless you owe many 10 of thousands or millions of dollars. If you don't have the money, you don't have the money. If you don't want to pay the termination fee, then don't pay it. Verizon will not spend the money to hunt you down, drag you into court, or have a State Marshall serve you with papers to report to court.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[rdavidson3]

And don't forget Bell's partner Telus. Between the 3 of them, they screw the customers without worry of losing them. If one customer gets pissed off at Bell and moves to either Rogers or Telus, then Bell knows they'll pick up a pissed off customer from one of the other 2.

They trade and share the same user base and abuse them to their hearts content, since we don't have a choice.

I would love to see the american providers get up here. Not to say that they would be any better, but more competition is a good thing.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Xacid]

What all did you tell them? My wife is from Ottawa but moved to the States with me and still has a year on her contract - but obviously can't use her phone without being charged a fuckload. She called once about it but they basically just gave her the lowest play = $30/month. And the termination fee is $20/month remaining on the contract. BLAH. And yeah, this is Bell.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[mikkelm]

Believe it or not, the large, monopolising telco assholes in Western Europe generally consider it sensible business practice to treat their customers with respect, even if their ultimate goal is profit.

They're fundamentally different from the consumer's point of view.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[rdavidson3]

The supervisor told me to call back and get tech support (from another phone), and if tech support can prove that I am in a marginal area and drops calls, then I can walk away from the contract without paying the $20 / month cancellation fee.

I am not sure why the coverage is so bad there, and they know its marginal. Its a pretty flat part of Calgary and no large apartment buildings around either.

Anyways, I hope that moving to Wind makes me happier, and the blogs on the website seem to show that they are listening to the gripes of the other telco customers, and coming up with plans that make sense. And if coverage sucks in one area, then they are building more towers or boasting the signal. The coverage isn't complete for Calgary yet, but they are working on it. I've seen a new tower betting built in the south, not sure if its a Wind tower, but I would guess it is.

Wind is even allowing the customer to tether their phones to your laptops and use your 5GB / month, and if you go over they don't charge extra or cut you off, then can throttle you down if things get bad.

Best of all, there is no contracts, but I do need to buy a GSM phone up front and pay full price for it, but hitting ebay or kijiji may be a better option.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Big Boss]

If your call is REALLY an emergency, as in life-threatening, not "get some milk on the way home", your phone WILL work if there are any GSM towers anywhere in range of the device. I don't think you even need a SIM in the phone for 911 calls. If it doesn't, and an AT&T phone does work there, AT&T is in a heap of trouble. Just contact the FCC, they will take care of it.

I've used a GSM phone that said "no service" to call 911, it found service for that call.

And T-Mobile has very good service in my area. It sucks that they don't where you live, but that's not the case for everyone. I've even traveled with my T-Mobile phone and it got good coverage in other cities. It doesn't work well in the sticks, but I don't expect it to either. I can generally make voice calls and use SMS, but data will often not work. However, the coverage map they post on their website is honest about that, so at least I knew what I was getting, and Verizon and AT&T rarely have better coverage in the sticks anyway.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Myopic]

You sound very knowledgeable. Could you please cite a law so we could use it?

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Myopic]

I'm with you in concept, but if the promo contract was really worth 500 million dollars, then at 30 dollars a call (which sounds really high to me), that would be one and two thirds million calls just for them to break even.

So, you'd better call back over and over again.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Myopic]

I totally agree, but it makes me wonder, how small of a change is too small to matter? Changing search engine options is, really, relatively minor, but to me still big enough. But what if they, uh, changed the "Start" menu to a "Go" menu (for example), or changed the icon for the browser from a little planet to a little sailing ship? What if they changed one default ring tone to a different default ring tone? I can't decide where I'd draw the line.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[vslashg]

Doesn't matter. Contracts can't override the law, regardless of how hard they try to make you think they can. They can say they have the right to change service at any time and that you can't terminate, but that is simply not true.

If the service materially changes, you can terminate the agreement, regardless of how many times they tell you that you can't.

And if they fight you on this, sue. Oh, wait, you can't: you signed away your rights to do so in an arbitration clause in your plan contract.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[mweather]

Why do Verizon contracts cost so much to get out of? Because it's worth it.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[josath]

$10/mo? that's $240 over two years, not too bad I guess, considering I got $300 discount on my phone when I signed a 2 year contract with t-mobile. Do you have a link to this? I haven't seen these plans before.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Captain Spam]

Not quite. The Milestone is designed for European 3G networks (i.e. runs off different frequencies than US networks, even besides T-Mobile's unique 3G frequency). Sure, if you're in the US, you'll get a GSM version of the Droid, as well as voice service and EDGE connectivity, but if you're getting an uberpowered smartphone, I think you'd want the possibility of 3G worked in there somewhere.

(simply assuming the GP is in the US when Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile were mentioned)

Okay, granted, I have my trusty G1 here in an area where T-Mobile doesn't have 3G service (and, despite promises, seems to be in no hurry to provide it), and I like it quite a bit, but still...

Re:Do you hear me now??

[oneshotdeal]

Maybe this guy can help you. He does the serious consumer complaints, I think: Eric Weissman, Verizon Wireless, Executive Relations, 240-5682459

Re:Do you hear me now??

[AK Marc]

Doesn't matter. Contracts can't override the law, regardless of how hard they try to make you think they can.

Well, the Libertarians will be very upset about that, but suppose you are 100% correct. What's the effect when you sign an "illegal" contract? You get to follow what you like, then if there's something in violation of the law, you don't follow it and tell them why? They won't believe you, and you'll have to fight the contract in court. Otherwise, they'll proceed like the contract is valid and you'll have outstanding debts and marks on your credit report.

By the way, have you ever tried to get a home loan with even silly stuff on your credit report? You'll be there on closing day, they'll say "this whole thing falls through if you don't make out a check for $525 (or whatever) to Verizon and hand it to the escrow agent." Sure, you have the option to not pay Verizon, but then you also will be giving up the home loan, and the house that goes with it. Happened to me with a water bill after I moved and the final bill never made it to me. I probably did owe that money, but never even got a chance to look at the bill and make sure it was correct, and it was pay the bill or not buy the house.

Your only real recourse if someone presents you with an "illegal" contract is to walk away. Anything else and you did sign away that right, and it would take a court order to reinstate it if you aren't allowed to sign it away.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[digitalunity]

The fee is the same whether you bought a $500 phone or a "free" phone. Considering the average person gets anywhere from the "free" phone to a "$100" phone, Verizon will make a killing off the ETF's.

Oh wait, Verizon's already making a killing. The FCC or Congress really needs to take a hard look at AT&T, Verizon and Sprint and clamp down on customer unfairness. Verizon made $15.5 billion on revenue of $93.4 billion for fiscal year '07(that's nearly 17% profit). These ETF's are extremely unfair and are being used as a crude but effective hammer to keep their customers from switching to other carriers.

The wireless carrier industry needs a hardcore congressional shakedown. We Americans spend more on wireless services than anyone else in the world, by a significant margin.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[digitalunity]

My experience with this is that they will simply send you to collections, lose your letter and you'll never get anywhere with them. At that point, the only closure is to pay what they're asking so collectors stop calling.

It's that or fire bomb their headquarters for being shysters, but I hear that's illegal now.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[stonewolf]

This is an excellent suggestion, but not quite complete. Do not just complain. Ask for instructions on how to change the setting back to what it was. Under no conditions should you accept that it can not be done. You could change it yesterday, so you must be able to change it today, right? Be nice to the poor guy on the other end of the line. He is not at fault. But, when he says you can't change it kindly say that you believe he does not know how, and then demand to talk to a senior technical person so you can get your phone working again. Stay on the phone as long as possible and talk to as many people as possible.

After you call Verizon and complain you *must* then call the FCC. You can find the number at http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm?sid=d1e640&id=d1e697 or just 1-888-225-5322 if you trust me :-) Then, you call the senators and your representative. You find your senator at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm and then your representative at http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/mcapdir.html

Calling Verizon costs Verizon money, but it will not force them to change their actions. Calling the FCC forces the agency that regulates Verison to take notice of what Verizon has done. If the FCC doesn't get complaints they are not forced to "notice" the problem. Calling the Senate and the House of representatives makes sure that the people who make the laws that govern Verizon notice that the people who vote for them are not happy with the laws that govern Verizon. Believe it or not, no matter how large a bribe ... OK "campaign contribution" your elected officials have been paid by Verizon (each and everyone of them has been bribed by Verizon) they will take action if they think it will affect their ability to stay in office. You see, no matter how much money Verizon can give them, Verizon can not vote for them. And the elected bastards know one thing, if they do not get elected they get no more goodies from Verizon and the rest of the megacorps.

And, Ya'know, if you are just feeling mean, call Microsoft support and ask how to turn off Bing on your phone. It is their product, they should know, right?

The idea is to make this policy change as costly for Verizon as possible. That means you make them pay to handle your calls and you make them pay even more by generating bad feelings toward them in the Senate and the House.

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot. If you want to call and leave a comment for at the White House for President Obomo, 202-456-1111 or, if you do not trust me as you should not, you can find the number here http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact. You can also send an email from there.

Stonewolf.

Why isn't this information listed at the top of the page on Slashdot?

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Foolhardy]

T-Mobile Even More Plus

Re:Do you hear me now??

[hazydave]

B-L-A-C-K-B-E-R-R-Y... not the DROID. Google search is still front and center on the DROID, though you could pretty easily write up a widget to give you a different search engine up front. Well, I could.

In theory anyway, Verizon couldn't do this on the DROID if they wanted to, since the DROID is a "Google Experience" phone, which means the carrier keeps their hands off. They could try something like this on the DROID Eris, which is not, but it would be pretty easy to circumvent. I kind of wonder why you couldn't do similarly on the Blackberry, but I suppose they have things locked down pretty tight on that OS or something.

But like others said, pretty much until the DROID hit the market, you didn't choose Verizon because of their smartphones, but in spite of their smartphones, simply because they have the best network, by far. Not the fastest, but the most consistently fast (every cell site does 3G). Rarely dropped calls, rarely overloaded cells, and great coverage (in part, because they have one of the two 850MHz slots in just about every market in the USA... AT&T has most of the others, but many were doing D-AMPS until recently, with GSM on 1900 only). At my house, Sprint doesn't make it to the driveway, T-Mobile works along the driveway, rarely on the back deck, AT&T is solid on the back deck but sketchy indoors, while Verizon works in the cellar.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[YouWantFriesWithThat]

i can only speak to my experience with the droid, not android in general. there is full push/pull for gmail, contact info, and google calendar. calendar seems damn near instant, mail is a little balky when it is syncing the sent mail folder or sending an email to archive from inbox. but new mails come faster to my phone than to an open gmail tab on my PC. i have only used the gmail app (comes pre-installed) not the android email app, so if you are planning on syncing to something other than gmail i have no idea.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[hazydave]

From what I've read, the Milestone only does 900MHz/2100MHz 3G, which is the European AWS band, specifically reallocated for GSM's bandwidth-hungry 3G protocols (you need 10MHz for regular UMTS/HSPA, and 20MHz for the higher speed stuff, the version AT&T sells at 7.2Mb/s down and 2Mb/s up). It's almost as if Motorola didn't want this phone imported to the USA :-)

AT&T jumped in early here, with more bandwidth already owned, and did it on their own with non-standard 850MHz and 1900MHz, including some compromises (they have a single-duplex 5MHz version), and some places they just aren't going to do 3G.

T-Mobile waited for the US AWS auction, and got 1700/2100MHz slots, but they came later, and they're less well funded... and worst of all, not compatible with either AT&T or Europe. So they get little hardware support.

Now, the reason they say "900/2100" or "1700/2100" is particularly evil... these are not alternatives, the phone is using both: 900MHz or 1700MHz for transmit, 2100MHz in both cases for receive. So if you look in detail at the specs, you may not even see mention of the 2100MHz frequency (FCC filings, for example), because that's receive-only, and doesn't have to be documented unless used for transmit. This was particularly confusing given that CDMA, 2G/EDGE, and AT&T can all work within a single band, which is what everyone's used to (eg, 850/1900 for voice, EDGE, or EvDO is a choice, not a coupling).

Re:Do you hear me now??

[darthflo]

Delicious. I shall be looking forward to the death of my Windows Mobile phone. Thanks :)

Re:Do you hear me now??

[mattack2]

No, as others have suggested, just go to the search page of your choice in the browser. Personally, while this is irksome, I basically never use the web search field in any browser (and I wish I could get it off the screen). Seeing the fast loading google page come up is a quick gauge of how good my net connection is.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[milomilo]

BitZtream: errr, "bzzzt!" Nope.

As Wolfgang Pauli said: "That isn't right. It's not even wrong."

No, contracts can't override the law (we're talking U.S. law, here): a company generally can't have you waive implied warranties (merchantability, fitness for use, etc.), or do all kinds of other things (unconscionability, against public policy...)

But it is certainly legal (until a court says otherwise) to say "we have the right to [do stuff to your service], and by reading and signing this, you agree.

You mention "material" changes to the service - well, (a) if you can still go to the google website and search, well: pffft! - your materiality argument is pretty weak, at least in the Real World of Very Expensive and Prolonged Litigation, and (b) I bet dollars to donuts that the right to change, say, the default search engine, or your choices in that matter, are thoroughly covered in the agreement you signed.

Verizon has entire FLOORS of lawyers to write these things - you think they didn't think it through before implementing this?

I'm not saying it's fair, or right-or-wrong -- I'm just saying: I sincerely hope that, if you're a law student, that when you interview, your potential future employers never see this post.

If you're not a law student, let me just say (as someone who's been an expert witness, working (on another case) for the lead attorney in the RIM (Blackberry) case: you know not whatof you speak.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Random5]

Actually it's not - the $350 fee is for 'advanced devices' which is, while certainly not well defined also not EVERY phone.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[IorDMUX]

You are not locked into using Bing. You can still use any search provider from the web browser, but the phone default for /its/ search app is Bing.

I don't even know what is this "search app" that has been supposedly taken over by Bing. I have a Blackberry Storm v1 (stupid early adoption... but that's another story), and a Bing icon appeared once on my phone, which I promptly stuffed into a folder along with the Google Voice and Blackberry Messenger icons that appeared there in the past.

When I go to search the web with the build in browser search, it defaults to Google. My backup choices are Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, and Live Search -- No Bing to be found!

Re:Do you hear me now??

[klossner]

And the network is one of the reasons I went with Sprint, with a plan that lets me roam free on Verizon's network. I get a decent phone instead of a crippled VZW device and the best coverage in the country.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[EvilJoker]

If they tried this on the Droid, *GOOGLE* would be suing- Big V is contractually forbidden from doing EXACTLY this type of thing on a device that provides the "Google Experience".
(Note that this only applies to the Motorola Droid, not the HTC Droid Eris, which is a "With Google" device)

Although I think Verizon is learning that customers don't like restrictions, the change we're hoping for is not going to come quickly.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[phorgan1]

The cool part is that I haven't gotten the upgrade for my Blackberry because Verizon wanted me to download it to microcrap or Mac. I'm a Linux guy. So--I still have google.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[twoHats]

Since I dumped Verizon a couple of years ago, and got a different type of phone (tracfone - no affiliation) I have saved about $2300 and have not had a single conversation with anyone at the phone company (Wow - what is that worth?!) and have had better service.

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

Re:Do you hear me now??

[amRadioHed]

Yeah, I came close to getting one of those. It seems like a decent enough phone, at least until the Droid came out.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Dr_Art]

If you "dump cellular all together" then why would you need a handset?

The best thing to do is to dump cellular all together. You save enough money each year that you can buy a new hand set every year if you want with your savings.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Pharmboy]

Yes, and I went "doh" right after I posted that. No edit feature here...

Re:Do you hear me now??

[peragrin]

well I half agree with you. whenever my internet connection is acting up I use google's home-page to test how fast things are loading, and if I have a connection. (it either works or it doesn't) However the search bar in browsers work very well for me as it is an even faster version of google's homepage.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[Skreems]

I'm contending that even since the Droid, you don't choose Verizon for their phones.

Re:Do you hear me now??

[cboslin]

If you "dump cellular all together" then why would you need a handset?

The best thing to do is to dump cellular all together. You save enough money each year that you can buy a new hand set every year if you want with your savings.

Simple, I have access to WiFi at home and at work, well over 80% of my calling area, however a cord attached to the router/computer really does not make sense all the time.

With a WiFi Bridge, you can extend your Wifi out to almost an acre of land, thus you have extended your calling area. That hand set will ring and that is the point isn't it?

My Nokia N800 has the GPS capability, costs extra and an extra monthly fee. The Nokia N800 never had cellular capability however like the Nokia N900. In fact cellular is the only addition to the N900 vs the N800. Yes, GPS without cellular....it is possible.

For me the reason to get rid of cellular was a customer-no-service reason as much as a value proposition. Had they not tried to put extra charges on my bill and wrongly attempt to extort me to pay them, I might still be stuck in the "hole in the ethers" (think boat analogy) mode. But they pissed me off and then I learned that they were racking me over the coals financially. My total cost of ownership (TCO) is only $5 per month / $60 per year. And there are 20 million Skype users every day. And Skype is not the cheapest VoIP solution available to me, just the one I like and have used extremely successfully for well over 3 years now...I love it! So I churned from cellular.

I still love having a handset. And my handset pays HD Video (H.264) via open source codecs (no Windows / Adobe required), allows me a full browser to read emails and use social media and more.

Even better, I can answer the phone on my computer or via the handset (I can choose to have them both to ring if I want, in fact I could have multiple handsets around the house all ring at the same time...) as the WiFi signal means I am NOT tethered thanks to my DD-WRT enabled firewall/router at all.

Another reason not to go Verizon!

[Syntroxis]

Not gonna do it.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[skine]

The bigger problem is the people who are "stuck" with Verizon for the next (up to) 24 months, and not those considering a new plan with Verizon.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[Shadow of Eternity]

Personally I'd try to argue my way up the manager food chain that this change is significant enough that I should be allowed to renegotiate or get out of the contract with no penalties.

No idea how well that would work with verizon, every company is different, but I've done the same in similar situations with other companies/services.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[causality]

Not gonna do it.

I haven't heard anything good about Verizon Wireless that made me want to do business with them in a very long time. They seem to be competing with themselves to see how much bad press they can drum up in the shortest possible time. What a sharp contrast to my personal experience with their DSL service, which has been amazingly hassle-free (no bandwidth caps, no ports filtered, no restrictions on running servers, etc). It's a shame because this one division seems hell-bent on giving a bad name to the entire company. This deal with Microsoft may be for $500 million, but I wonder what that figure would be if you adjusted for ill will and lost sales from potential customers who see this kind of thing and decide to go elsewhere.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[Basilius]

The saddest indication of how jaded we are with big business these days is that your post was modded funny.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[geekmux]

Not gonna do it.

Wow. You must be new here to the cellular market.

I'd say you've got another 7 minutes before you find yourself equally as fucked on your provider. That's about how long it takes to really read that contract you signed, along with the additional fine print addendum you accepted four times already clicking "I agree" before paying your last three bills online.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[DeadPixels]

Unfortunately, they aren't going to lose much in the way of sales. As someone else pointed out a few replies back, their network is probably the best in the US right now. I used to use Verizon years ago, but dropped them for T-Mobile because their coverage was poor. Suddenly, Verizon went on a network-upgrading binge, T-Mobile's network took a nosedive, and I found myself back at Verizon because I desperately needed a phone that could actually make calls when I needed it to.

And of course, it's not like the other companies are much better. T-Mobile has shot themselves in the foot repeatedly with data breaches and other problems, and while I haven't used any other carriers, I've heard equivalent horror stories from those who have. All of the carriers seem to be fighting over who can offer the worst service to the most people and get away with it.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[BeanThere]

At the very least spend a good deal of time arguing with them, being as difficult and angry a customer as possible, thus driving up their support costs a bit as a kind of aggregate 'penalty' for behavior like this.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[RobertM1968]

Not gonna do it.

I haven't heard anything good about Verizon Wireless that made me want to do business with them in a very long time.

I've heard lots of great stuff about them lately. But I have to admit it's all been in Verizon commercials... so I guess it doesnt count.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[Syntroxis]

Naw - had a cell phone for years - never have liked Verizon. They are probably one of the most expensive around. I sell Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and more. We have lots of people coming in dumping Verizon. Around here the main complaint is coverage and dropped calls. Believe it or not, T-Mobile has some of the best coverage in the area.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[RobertM1968]

Unfortunately, they aren't going to lose much in the way of sales. As someone else pointed out a few replies back, their network is probably the best in the US right now...

I happily use TMo, who has coverage (or at least roaming I dont seem to pay for) in every area I need them.

If one looks at their coverage map here:
Verizon

And enters Ticonderoga, NY in the City/State field, one will notice that they have... ummm... something. I dont know what. There is no key on their map that indicates what blue with white lines through it means. The same goes for Rt9N and the outskirts of Port Henry.

Well, I know what blue with white lines means (even though there is a Verizon store there). It means NO coverage... even though one would suspect from the map that it means 3G.

As a matter of fact, if you zoom out, it shows the coverage as blue - which is on their map key.

Gee, that's an outright lie. I wonder how many other areas are similarly mis-marked. Ticonderoga and Port Henry dont have 3G, EDGE, or even just basic phone coverage from Verizon. We (the Star Trek Phase 2 Team) has even made some "funny" videos about it that are on YouTube (well, "we" is our sound engineer Ralph Miller mostly, with a couple of us participating in some of them).

When we called them asking if or when they'd have it (since it is marked as they do on their map), they told us they dont, wont and never plan on as there is no demand for coverage up there. Four years later, and calls as recently as this past fall, and their maps are still incorrect.

Regardless, I am sure Verizon has better coverage in many areas than TMo, but for me, TMo's coverage is all I need for where I travel, and their customer service (regardless of how it may or may not be able to be improved) is light years above Verizon's - including helping me with phone/connectivity issues with "unapproved" and "untested" phones - as well as with my "tested/approved" G1 that I bought second hand on eBay.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[jesboat]

argue my way up the manager food chain

What you fail to understand is that the customer-accessible part of the manager food chain in the vast majority of companies is approximately two people tall: CSR and supervisor. (Depending on the company and nature of question, you may be able to get to tier2 support; hence the "approximately".)

You will have better luck...

• Just calling back. Virgin Mobile's policies used to differ depending on which call center your call got routed to, but even in less extreme cases, some reps are nicer than others.
• Turboing. In particular, some companies have started to have "Executive Support" hotlines (Sprint comes to mind.) Save these for a last resort. GetHuman is also useful.
• Moving horizontally. Try web order support, activations, billing, customer service, terminations, etc.
• Being nice instead of nasty.
• Writing. Yes, seriously. I've resolved many issues just by sending the entity in question a nastygram. People still take snail-mail seriously.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[MBGMorden]

Equally a problem is all the other carriers who won't build out their damned infrastructure so that so many people on Verizon have the option of switching away.

Seriously, though I've never had an issue with their policies before (nor this one since I don't have a Blackberry - I still find it in incredibly poor taste though even if it doesn't affect me), I don't really have any other option. I live out in the boonies and Verizon still provides a good usable signal for me at home. No other carrier does. And it's not just my one area. I have friends who are on AT&T, Nextel, T-Mobile, etc. I've noticed consistently that Verizon has gaps in coverage.

Trust me, if coverage had been equal I'd have been on AT&T with an iPhone long ago. The other carriers need to step up their game.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[drunkennewfiemidget]

I'm Canadian, and my issues are (usually) with Rogers, but I've found that e-mailing CEOs of companies that piss me off get me results every time.

And finding CEO e-mail addresses is rarely difficult. Get the e-mail of their corporate investor relations person, and then follow that same e-mail format with the CEO's name. ie firstinitiallastname@domain.com, or firstname.lastname@domain.com, etc.

I've never been unsuccessful in finding a CEOs e-mail address.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[Voyager529]

Similar success here. I was just talking to a friend of mine last night about getting T-Mo, because of everything I've heard and read about everyone else, they consistently seem to be the least corrupt. My Touch Pro2 supports 3G and the times I've used a data plan (I said "pretty please" when I bought the phone and they let me get away with not having a data plan consistently), it's been MUCH faster than Verizon on my BlackBerry Curve (yes, I carry both, work pays for the Blackberry). The CSRs have been friendly, courteous, know what they're talking about, and in five years of service with them haven't left an issue unresolved. This includes getting MMS to work with my jailbroken, unlocked iPhone when I had one.

With regards to this search issue, I think it's half FUD. When I read the summary, I looked at my Curve. Yes, there was a nifty Bing icon on my applications screen, and it might have even replaced a search icon that I've never used in the six months that I've owned the Curve. But I went into the Browser, and both Google and Wikipedia are both immediately available from the search function there, which is the only place I've ever used it. If there was a search icon that I hadn't noticed and they replaced it, then yeah that's kinda not-nice, but there's a difference between switching an icon and removing functionality. It's not like they firewalled Google or even removed them as being the default in the Browser (mine was at Wiki, the last place I did a search). Not that I have a whole lot of love for Verizon (see previous paragraph), but it's interesting that customer loyalty only goes as far as having to do a single extra click on the trackball.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[ackthpt]

(quote)The bigger problem is the people who are "stuck" with Verizon for the next (up to) 24 months, and not those considering a new plan with Verizon(/end quote)

Every time Verizon or someone else futher distills evil in the telco field I just thanks my lucky stars I'm on a pre-paid plan and have my mind made up that I will NEVER do a contract again.

Feel pity for the business users who are stuck with this bullshit.

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[Alsee]

People still take snail-mail seriously.

Yeah, I've found it amazing how much attention my letters receive when I include escargot in the envelope.

-

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[RockDoctor]

At the very least spend a good deal of time arguing with them, being as difficult and angry a customer as possible, thus driving up their support costs a bit as a kind of aggregate 'penalty' for behavior like this.

[SIGH] First sensible comment of the thread.
OK, I'll admit that I still can't understand what the fuck you'd need a search engine on a phone for - it's a phone after all, and if you want to use WWW browsing, then don't you already have a bookmarks file for your normal operations?
But yeah, sure - if the terms of service are so shitty, then don't sign the contract. If the terms have been changed under your feet, then change your number to a new service provider while fighting the contract that they've broken.
(I assume that you've got these basic options ; if not, change countries and/ or legislations)
And if those options are not acceptable, turn the phone off, cancel the standing payments and fight the contract. It's only a mobile phone ; it's not like it's your life or something.
[/self remembers to switch phone on check if I'd left the battery charged - yes, I did. OK, turn it off until I next need a camera, or am in a place where there is phone service. Mid- to late- January, looks a good first guess for the service ; the camera, I can't tell.]

Re:Another reason not to go Verizon!

[jesboat]

That's turboing.

Re:Droid

[blueg3]

So far, it hasn't.

F*ck you Verizon

[vinn]

F*ck you Verizon. You know, I used to manage a 500 phone cell contract at the last company I worked for. I actually liked Verizon then. They had great support and offered decent phones (although it still took them a year to get the RAZR, the hot phone at the time.) We had some great regional sales reps too. Warranties were hassle free and we appreciated that. I moved jobs three years ago. It came time to consider switching cell providers and I naively assumed Verizon was the same. Sure, they're rates were still about the same, but everything else has changed with the company. I hate dealing with them now and they're the bane of my existence. I had SEVERAL regional reps outright lie to me this year. I hate them.

Re:F*ck you Verizon

[trapnest]

I have to deal with Verizon as an ISP here for a few of my clients. I can't recall all the times a Verizon screwup has caused problems for me.

Re:F*ck you Verizon

[malkir]

From my experiences with Verizon as an internet provider, they're fantastic -- but all of their services just feel way too overpriced.

Re:F*ck you Verizon

[causality]

From my experiences with Verizon as an internet provider, they're fantastic -- but all of their services just feel way too overpriced.

They really are. When I signed up for DSL service I just about grilled the sales rep, to the point that he transferred me to one of their techs because he did not know the answers to some of my questions. I asked whether they filter any ports for any reason, and they don't. I asked if they have any kind of bandwidth cap, and they don't. I asked if they would hassle me if I decided to run any servers of any kind on my Linux box, and they won't. I straight up asked them, "let's say that I totally saturate both the upstream and downstream bandwidth 24/7, would you throttle or cap or in any way interfere with this?**" and they said no. And you know what, they were honest and true to their word. Mind you, this is regular residential service, not a business plan.

Friends of mine who have Internet service through cable companies have not been nearly as satisfied. At least in my local area, the cable companies are much more eager to screw with users' traffic. They're also much less reliable in terms of outages, which almost never happen to me and have been promptly fixed the few times they did occur. I think too that the cable ISPs around here filter at least TCP port 25, possibly others. Further, while their potential maximum bandwidth is more than my DSL connection, they rarely (if ever) experience that maximum speed, presumably because of the shared nature of cable service. Anytime I have tested it, my DSL service has always been exactly the bandwidth that Verizon has agreed to provide, no more and no less.

I feel like I am getting my money's worth and I really cannot find anything to complain about. When I read negative story after negative story about Verizon Wireless, it amazes me that their wireless division is even the same company.


**I don't actually saturate my full bandwidth 24/7. That's not really the point. What matters to me is that I can do it if I feel like it without interference. At least in my case, when they say "unlimited" they really mean it.

Re:F*ck you Verizon

[slimjim8094]

You're lucky. In my area, they filter at least incoming port 80 and outgoing port 25. Their speeds were terrible, and it was far too expensive. (like $35-40/mo for 768k down and about 96k up). I asked their support - on multiple occasions - about getting 80 and 25 unblocked, and they didn't know what I was talking about; in fact, they denied they did such a thing. They wanted $15/mo for a static IP, but wouldn't do reverse DNS - not that it would help, if I couldn't run my own mailserver.

I'm with AT&T DSL now, which is really just resold Covad DSL. It's been great - even gave me 2 free static IPs, when I asked. No port blocks, 4 times faster (though still fairly slow), and excellent support. Only problem is it goes out a few times a year - but it is residential.

Point being, anecdotes are anecdotes. Maybe Verizon is great in some areas.

Re:F*ck you Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from Australia... when you say unlimited, you mean like 60Gb/month or something huge like that right?

Re:F*ck you Verizon

[misexistentialist]

But would they actually tell you the price? When I was looking for an ISP I couldn't get a quote for what my bill would exactly be, since "taxes" and "fees" apparently are unknowable in advance. One of my requirements when buying something is to know what I'm paying, and cable at least is able to fulfill this basic requirement (Service is also great, but that is likely to change since people are willing to pay so much for obsolete DSL connections that cable companies will match the competition by offering DSL-level bandwidth)

Re:F*ck you Verizon

[Shatrat]

Purely coincidental. Verizon, Verizon Business, and Verizon Wireless have relatively little to do with each other beyond name.

Re:F*ck you Verizon

[malkir]

In the states (at least my area) it's really unlimited. Obviously this varies from ISP to ISP, but I've gone near or over 120gb in a month without any capping or tampering with my traffic. Granted I'm on 15mpbs Verizon FiOS so they're pretty lenient.

Re:F*ck you Verizon

[jthill]

My experience has been very like that. I didn't grill them, I started on a $14/mo easy-out plan they had for a while, have upgraded several times since, and they've always delivered on their advertised rates. No cheating, they don't count link protocol overhead, I get my full data rate in both directions, pretty much always.

But their router keeps trying to connect to port 80 on my machine.

Re:F*ck you Verizon

[McKing]

Our office just switched away from Verizon to T-Mobile for our office phones. I actually gave up my office cell phone 2 years ago because of the poor coverage in our area (we would actually have to step outside of our data center to use our verizon phones, but my personal AT&T and later T-Mobile phones had 3 or 4 bars all the time in there). I've been a happy G1 user since the first week they came out and I'm not looking back.

Re:F*ck you Verizon

[GooberToo]

You can't trust bars on phones!

Many phones and especially phones being pushed by a specific carrier have been rigged to show higher bars than signal physically available. Thusly, comparison of signal bars between two different phones or even two of the same phones provided by two different carriers is an extremely easy way to be suckered.

The best way to compare signal quality is to make calls from key locations to key locations and verify you like the signal quality indicated by voice quality.

Lastly, any 3G phone, while operating in a supported 3G area, is likely to provide a superior voice experience at the cost of shorter battery life. Regardless, if any phones used in your comparison support 3G, ensure you only compare with other 3G phones to allow for fairness in voice quality comparisons. And if the majority of your users will be operating outside of 3G coverage, best to not use a 3G phone for comparison as it will not be representative of what the majority of your users will experience.

Remind me how much AT&T sucks again

[Mononoke]

No matter how much AT&T sucks, Verizon will always lead the competition in that category.

Re:Remind me how much AT&T sucks again

[TooMuchToDo]

There's a map for that? =)

Re:Remind me how much AT&T sucks again

[E IS mC(Square)]

Sorry. They both are same. I stay away from any offspring of Ma Bell.

Re:Remind me how much AT&T sucks again

[SetupWeasel]

I worked in the telephone industry, and I can tell you this: Verizon is not perfect, but they are nothing like the festering shitpile that was SBC and is now at&t.

Re:Remind me how much AT&T sucks again

[malkir]

Not true, try to get a AT&T rep to come out to work on your corporate phone lines. Just try it to see who they send out. Every single AT&T rep has been some bumbling foriegner or white trash meth addict. They are unprofessional, bad mechanics, and frequently late with no phone calls. My favorite part? Of of their techs took a piss in the back terminal room, they're a joy to work with.

In all seriousness, when my friends with AT&T can get service anywhere it's shocking.

Re:Remind me how much AT&T sucks again

[alex_guy_CA]

It's like AT&T and Verizon are competing, not to see who can offer the best coverage, or the lowest prices, but instead they are competing to see who can suck the most.

Each week one of them pulls ahead with a new move like this.

Re:Remind me how much AT&T sucks again

[Erbo]

Exactly, though I'd have phrased it as "No matter how much AT&T may 'suck' in people's eyes, they'd never pull a dick move like this."

(Longtime AT&T customer since they were AT&T before they were Cingular, thankyouverymuch)

Re:Remind me how much AT&T sucks again

[malkir]

Yes they would: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091209/1642147276.shtml

If you need to do this...

[JoshuaZ]

If you need to push your product by paying another company to force your product to be used, I don't think that says very good things about your product. Moreover, it is going to make many people simply react negatively to being forced to use Bing. On the other hand, given the massive head start that Google has over Bing, it is understandable that Microsoft would try tactics like this. Presumably if they are still trying this sort of thing in two or three years that would indicate a much more serious problem. Honestly, having tried both Google and Bing I've found them to be close to the same quality. I prefer Google but primary for the interface.

Re:If you need to do this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea but from the same artilce:

"It should be said, however, that according to press reports, Google was in talks with Verizon over a similar search deal before the Microsoft pact was finalized"

Sounds like google was working on doing pretty much the same thing. Microsoft just beat them to it. This is about money, not about the quality of the product.

Re:If you need to do this...

[KublaiKhan]

It is a little on the suspicious side for anyone paying attention to see this sort of thing--essentially, they're saying that nobody uses their engine voluntarily so they have to pay to force people to use it. Kinda makes me wonder what's -wrong- with it.

I've used Bing a couple times, mostly by accident because the corporate image only has IE available and forgetting to complete an address in the search bar brings you there. I didn't really like the 'feel' of it, but that could possibly be because of my not being used to its foibles. Certainly I'm not likely to go spontaneously switching to it, given that I've spent a lot of time learning exactly what search terms to use in other places to get the result I'm looking for.

Re:If you need to do this...

[nine-times]

Ultimately how bad this is depends on the terms of the deal. Is the search engine the default option on new devices, or is it the only option forced on existing customers who didn't know something like this could happen when they signed up? That sort of thing makes a big difference.

Either way, I think the real culprit here is Verizon. It's understandable that Microsoft or Google would want some kind of deal for search engine placement. We all know Google pays Mozilla for placement as the default engine. The problem is more about how little regard Verizon has for their own customers-- so little that they think it's perfectly appropriate to go in and screw with a customer's phone remotely.

Re:If you need to do this...

[alen]

google does the exact same thing and has for a while

to push android they have a revenue sharing agreement with other companies. check out abovethecrowd.com.

Re:If you need to do this...

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been standard Microsoft behavior. Whether it says good things about your product, it's exactly the sort of bundling that concerned the DOJ.

Too bad the DOJ was eviscerated by the Bush twins, and Obama doesn't show any signs of replacing the excised organs.

Re:If you need to do this...

[228e2]

Hmm, if the article did say this, how is this modded troll?

Re:If you need to do this...

[innerweb]

Google pays Mozzila for initial placement. That I can change when I want to. Nah, this just means no AT&T and no Verizon for us (my family).

Re:If you need to do this...

[fm6]

If you need to push your product by paying another company to force your product to be used, I don't think that says very good things about your product.

Nonsense. Google as a lot of lockin. I'm often curious about other search engines, but it's always too much trouble to give them a proper trial. Any software tool has users that just can't be bothered to switch. Look at Yahoo: they never really did provide a good search solution (the original product was just a glorified bookmark page!) yet they dominated the market for a long time, just because they got there first. If Google hadn't been so unavoidably superior (they were they first search engine to realize that any search solution had to be able to scale fast enough to keep up with the web's absurd growth), Yahoo would still be on top.

That said, bribing a carrier to lock out your competitors is pretty dubious. And although Verizon is also acting questionably, the main lesson I take from this is the Blackberry is a poor choice if you want control of your own device.

Re:If you need to do this...

[jc42]

Is the search engine the default option on new devices, or is it the only option forced on existing customers who didn't know something like this could happen when they signed up?

According to the summary, it was done to the writer's phone that had been using google; he found that google was no longer an allowed search engine and he had to use bing.

It does seem like this sort of arrogant restriction should be legal ground for abrogating the contract. It should also be additional evidence in the "Net Neutrality" debate, since it's a good example of how current internet providers are blocking net access to prevent you from dealing with companies that haven't paid them for access to customers.

I wonder if any Verizon customers are discussing a class-action suit yet ...

Re:If you need to do this...

[Culture20]

If you need to push your product by paying another company to force your product to be used, I don't think that says very good things about your product.

I've got some friends that work for Microsoft, and a lot of their social media status updates are about Bing!. The way they're phrased, it's obvious that posting those statuses is "not required, but not discouraged". Astroturfing, paid shills, annoying television commercials, removal of choice, worse search results... these are a few of my least favorite Bing!s.

Re:If you need to do this...

[awyeah]

[...] the main lesson I take from this is the Blackberry is a poor choice if you want control of your own device.

If you look at most of Verizon's other phones, they all use the same user interface (look and feel, menus, etc). They also used to disable some bluetooth functionality (you couldn't transfer files, but you could use a headset), and they used to disable GPS functions for applications other than their "VZ Navigator" app.

It sounds to me like Verizon is a poor choice if you want control of your own device.

Then again, lots of carriers lock out some functionality. For example, AT&T hasn't given me the manual network selection option on any of my phones for years. It only appears when I'm outside the U.S.

Re:If you need to do this...

[jc42]

google does the exact same thing and has for a while

As far as I can tell, their deals don't include blocking access to the other search sites. Verizon is making bing the only search site usable by Verizon customers. Google seems to merely pay for placement as the default server. My (up-to-date) copies of seamonkey and firefox default to google, but the search widget has a menu of other search sites, and I typing in the URLs of other search sites also works. Nothing is blocked.

So it's not at all the "same thing" as what the Verizon/Microsoft coalition has done.

The abovethecrowd.com article seems to confirm this. Google's nefarious plot has be based on positioning themself as the default "less than free" alternative, by giving kickbacks from their ad revenue to their partners. But so far they don't seem to have actually managed to restrict customers' access as Verizon is doing. They merely make their stuff available at a better price for everyone, to gain the "default" position.

The article goes into the related GPS navigation story in some detail. I saw a good example of google's approach a few days ago, when I needed to be at an event about 90 miles away shortly after local rush hour. I have a Garmin GPS gadget in my car, and I also had my T-Mobile G1 Android phone in my pocket. The Garmin gave me a route that the G1's google maps app told me had a serious traffic congestion. So I took a slightly longer alternate route that google said wasn't congested, and got there well before the estimated arrival time of either GPS gadget.

The interesting thing about this is that I've taken to pitting the G1 and the Garmin nav stuff against each other, out of interest in how they compare. The main problem with Garmin's GPS is that it doesn't have "live" net access to anything. Its maps are now incorrect for a couple of local areas due to recent new highway construction, and it would cost me $160 to "upgrade" my maps to the latest version. The G1 uses google maps, so it's constantly downloading the current maps from the Net, but its downside is that when I'm out of cell-tower range, it can't get the maps. In this case, though, it showed off the real strength of google's nav stuff: It gets current traffic reports from its traveling phones and can warn you when there are problems ahead. Most of the time, its warnings are even accurate. If Garmin and the other GPS vendors can't move onto the Net in the same way, they're going to be out of business soon. On that trip, I ended up ignoring the Garmin routing, and followed the G1's suggestions.

It should be noted that google isn't just supplying their nav software on Android "google" phones. My wife has an iPhone (which she loves), and it has the same google maps software. We've had a bit of fun comparing how google's stuff works on the two phones. There's no clear winner in that contest.

(And I expect that google will soon be pre-fetching maps over a larger area, as memory becomes cheaper and phones can store more maps. This will ameliorate the out-of-cell-contact problems a lot. They'll also probably figure out how to make their UI better, by copying things that the GPS companies have done right. ;-)

Re:If you need to do this...

[fm6]

I guess it's fair to say that all the service providers will screw us over, given the chance. Which is why I vastly prefer GSM networks to the others, since having a SIM card takes away the provider's ability to dictate which phone I'll use. Though then you still get screwed; if you don't take the free or discounted phone, you're effectively paying for your phone twice.

The Europeans did it right: all service providers use GSM, which creates a nice competitive market for SIM cards and gives consumers control over their devices.

If you don't want AT&T dictating which network you use, you may (or may not) find it worthwhile to use two SIM cards. You can even get a phone with two SIM slots.

Re:If you need to do this...

[Tablizer]

If you need to push your product by paying another company to force your product to be used, I don't think that says very good things about your product.

People stopped using Microsoft because they wanted to around the millennium change-over. Ever since then, it's mostly for compatibility. Microsoft has yet to make a product that people actually want because it's a good product by itself.

Their only other semi-success, the Xbox, had horrible QA problems. People only bought them because MS either subsidized them or because MS bought exclusivity on the best games of the day. With both Bing and Xbox they are hoping they can buy enough market-share to reach the point where they can use compatibility as their main weapon again. That's the only game they know how to competitively play because that's the only game they have sufficient practice in and that's the type of personality they hire because company managers tend to hire clones of themselves. Gates was a B techie, C- artist, but an A poker player.
         

Re:If you need to do this...

[awyeah]

I've actually done that. I was out of the country on business for a few weeks last year. I got my BlackBerry's SIM unlock code from AT&T (it was actually pretty easy), and I bought a pre-paid SIM from Vodafone.

Re:If you need to do this...

[fm6]

Easy or not, doesn't it bother you that you can't change SIM card in your own phone without AT&T's permission?

I use AT&T too, but never with a Blackberry phone. The facts I've learned today make it slightly less likely that I'll ever give the BB a try. Not impossible, but jeez...

Re:If you need to do this...

[awyeah]

Sure, but it's a fact of life here.

If you purchase any phone from any provider in the U.S., it's very likely that it's subsidy locked so you can only use that provider's SIM. It doesn't matter if it's a BlackBerry or a free low-end flip phone.

I know that AT&T and T-Mobile do this, not sure how it works with the CDMA (Sprint, Verizon, etc) providers.

Re:If you need to do this...

[bertoelcon]

The mods do not RTFA and thought GP was just trashing Google. That would be my best guess.

Re:If you need to do this...

[causality]

Is the search engine the default option on new devices, or is it the only option forced on existing customers who didn't know something like this could happen when they signed up?

According to the summary, it was done to the writer's phone that had been using google; he found that google was no longer an allowed search engine and he had to use bing.

It does seem like this sort of arrogant restriction should be legal ground for abrogating the contract. It should also be additional evidence in the "Net Neutrality" debate, since it's a good example of how current internet providers are blocking net access to prevent you from dealing with companies that haven't paid them for access to customers.

I wonder if any Verizon customers are discussing a class-action suit yet ...

Oh, right.

The government is going to solve all these issues.

HOW!?!?!

By issuing 30,000 pages of new regulations that define "neutrality"?

Guess who's going to write those regulations? The lawyers from the folks with money - AT&T, Verizon, Google, etc.

"Net neutrality" is just a pissing contest over who gets to squeeze consumers for using bandwidth. Thank you oh so much for playing your useful idiot part.

This is an example of the kind of reactive emotionalism that lowers the overall quality of discussion. I sometimes receive responses like this myself and it usually results in wasted effort spent correcting them. The responses are both AC and pseudonymous and the wasted effort is either mine or that of others. If they progress beyond a couple of posts, the corrections become more and more like flamebait as people start to lose patience with it.

I would describe it generally as reading meanings into a post that were not actually stated. On the surface, it's a failure to appreciate that what was not said is just as important as what was said. On closer inspection, it's like a subconscious process of misinterpretation but it's not random because it invariably serves to establish a strawman. The strawman is produced because the post's actual text is more difficult to argue against than the misinterpreted version.

The person committing this fallacy proceeds to tear down the strawman. In opposition to honest inquiry, this is often done with frequently recited arguments with which the person is familiar and confident. It is therefore no surprise that the person shows no signs of wondering whether such easily noticed objections are a sign that they have misunderstood the post. Instead, they prefer to regard the other person as an idiot, or at the least, as having missed something obvious. In fact that "you're a moron" type of venom is an integral part of it. Of course, all of this is reinforced by using an easy argument against them and "prevailing."

The part that can be hard to understand is that it's not intentional or planned. Call someone on it, and they can sincerely yet incorrectly deny that they do it. For that reason, I am calling it a fallacy and not a tactic. Still, it is not random or accidental and it serves a purpose. I think it comes from a strong need to feel "right" coupled with the fact that being "right" isn't good enough, for someone else must also be "wrong."

If a need like that is strong enough, the need alone will engineer situations that satisfy it. This can occur only when the person is ignorant of it, for a person who knows they are doing this also knows the folly of it and would choose not to. So long as the person doesn't understand this, they will assume that they never do anything that they didn't deliberately decide to do. The objectivity that comes from cultivating a mindful awareness of one's own actions is how one obtains that knowledge. This is almost exclusively an inner process because of the great difficulty of convincing a person with a need to feel "right" that he is wrong about his own motivations.

Re:If you need to do this...

[ShakaUVM]

Guess why I got a Droid? First fucking Verizon phone that actually lets you use the phone's GPS for, you know, GPS, without paying them thirty bucks a month.

Re:If you need to do this...

[fm6]

It depends on the platform. None of the GSM phones I've ever owned has has needed to be unlocked. The fact that Apple supports this kind of user lockin is one big reason I haven't been tempted by the iPhone. (The other is the developer lockin.) I've never used Blackberry, mainly because I'm not the kind of user they're designed for, but this lockin issue adds to that. With these two exceptions, I can't think of another platform that cripples GSM phones this way.

Other cell technologies are easier to control, since the IMEI is built into the phone, not part of a separate SIM card. I suspect that's the main reason most U.S. providers stayed away from GSM, though the official reason was that it was "less efficient".

Re:If you need to do this...

[dissy]

Nonsense. Google as a lot of lockin. I'm often curious about other search engines, but it's always too much trouble to give them a proper trial.

So, Verizon is not bad because they force you to use Bing and do not allow any competing search engines to be manually entered or selected by the user...
Yet Google IS bad because they make you happy and you are too lazy to change away from them to the many options that exist?

There is nothing wrong with being lazy, but being lazy is NOT being locked in.

Re:If you need to do this...

[BitZtream]

So you expect a company not to encourage its customers to talk good about their own product?

Its not like they are saying 'I work for Google and I prefer Bing cause its awesome'

They are saying, 'I work for MS, and I like Bing for these reasons'

Which isn't evil its just company spirit. Slashdot needs to learn the difference between pride in your work/team and evil.

Re:If you need to do this...

[mark3748]

This is no longer the case. None of the new phones use a Verizon ui any longer, the phones aren't locked down, you can use most any bluetooth profile that any other carrier allows. VzNavigator is one thing that you aren't going to get away from without getting one of the android phones, but you're locked into similar things with all carriers. With the Droid and Droid Eris, you get Google Maps navigation (free!) which works very well. Also, if you don't like the phones or apps available, you can use any (unlocked) cdma phone with them. Verizon has been opening up quite a lot in the past few years. Before you start knocking them, do a little research.

And as for GSM being so great, ask a Verizon customer how many dropped calls they've had in the past month, year, two years, what have you. Chances are you'll get an answer of maybe zero to two. Ask an AT&T customer the same question, they've likely lost count. If you're just looking for a SIM-based phone, they are moving to roll out LTE very soon.

Re:If you need to do this...

[Nesman64]

The difference is that Google and Mozilla were adding a feature. The built-in search box wasn't a standard feature at the time. It would be like Mozilla forcing Google to be your homepage and not allowing you to change it.

Re:If you need to do this...

[imric]

So we should just trust 'the invisible hand'? Trust that capitalistic forces work best without any regulation because competition fixes everything, and there are no such things as monopolies? That choice is the natural result of deregulation, that consumers always benefit when corporations make deals to control consumers? Screw your divide-by-zero economic theory. Last time it came close to being tried, we got 'robber barons' and workers rioting with shotguns. But that was then, this is now, right? And you called the parent poster a 'useful idiot'?

Wake up. Markets are good, but without rules, business WILL run roughshod over consumers. And competition is the first thing that business wants to eliminate. If they can, they will. Without an infinite market, that is what unregulated business DOES.

And guess what, bubby, there is no such thing as an infinite market.

Re:If you need to do this...

[gbjbaanb]

But they do talk bad about their company (at least mostly in a 'WTF is Ballmer doing this time' way)

http://minimsft.blogspot.com/

Some of the posts are intriguing, some are just dull, some are cutting.

Re:If you need to do this...

[Voyager529]

Verizon is making bing the only search site usable by Verizon customers.

Either they messed up on my Curve (because I can search Google just fine from the browser, it's even still the default since I used it last), Microsoft simply paid to have "bing" icon rolled onto my blackberry's app screen, or [citation needed].

Re:If you need to do this...

[awyeah]

Ah, you're outside the U.S. Yeah. Most of our phones here are locked. That's just the reality. It's easy to get them unlocked, but certainly not ideal.

The one advantage is that if you're willing to put up with purchasing a locked phone (and a commitment to a provider), you can get a pretty deep discount. I happen to not have any problems with AT&T, so I was happy committing to them for two years.

Re:If you need to do this...

[awyeah]

That's good, I'm glad they got rid of the unified UI and the Bluetooth restrictions.

It should be noted that with the BlackBerrys on the Verizon network, you can also use any mapping/GPS app (my girlfriend uses Google Maps - not Google Maps navigation - on her Curve all the time).

I think the whole dropped calls/reliability thing very much depends on where you live. AT&T and VZ are the most popular carriers around here, at least among people I know. I'm in the Cleveland/Akron, Ohio area. My parents, my girlfriend, and many friends coworkers of mine who use Verizon often complain about dropped calls or areas/buildings where they don't get a signal. My girlfriend especially,

I am on AT&T, and I can't remember the last time I dropped a call. It certainly wasn't within the past few years. I do remember the last time I had no signal, I was in the middle of a large hospital building. Before that - I can't remember.

I think in that regard, it is truly a "Your Mileage May Vary" situation - by provider, by device, and by location. I've heard that AT&T absolutely blows in NYC and LA where Verizon really shines.

Re:If you need to do this...

[dangitman]

Which isn't evil its just company spirit. Slashdot needs to learn the difference between pride in your work/team and evil.

When did anybody say it was evil? Culture20's post did not mention that word once. Perhaps you are projecting?

Re:If you need to do this...

[fm6]

Wrong, I'm in the U.S. Did you miss the part where I said I used AT&T?

The one advantage is that if you're willing to put up with purchasing a locked phone (and a commitment to a provider), you can get a pretty deep discount.

That is not an advantage. There's no free lunch here. The money for that "free" phone has to come from somewhere, and it comes in the form of higher rates. The nasty thing is that you pay that premium whether you get the "free" phone or not.

Re:If you need to do this...

[awyeah]

Actually, I guess I did miss that part, sorry about that. :)

I'm not arguing that there's a free lunch anywhere.

You're going to pay the premium whether or not your carrier subsidizes your device. I'd get no discount from AT&T for bringing my own unlocked phone.

As far as I'm concerned, the only disadvantage there is that I can't cancel my service without paying a fee. I've been an AT&T/Cingular/AT&T customer for 7 years now - I'm okay with the commitment. I'm also prepared to (reluctantly) pay the ETF if the service suddenly turns to crap.

Out of curiosity... where do you purchase your phones from?

Re:If you need to do this...

[Alsee]

Now playing:
Slashdot The Musical

-

Re:If you need to do this...

[AmberBlackCat]

I guess this is as good a time as ever to mention that Google is the only search provider on my Nintendo DSi. I'd really like to be able to switch to another. It's not just Microsoft doing this. Also, having a search engine as the default is almost as good as having it be the only one there, since most people will never change it. Google's done a lot of that.

Re:If you need to do this...

[AmberBlackCat]

I think you should do an experiment. Find somebody who isn't the Slashdot type. Just some ordinary person you know who might actually use the search engine in their phone or web browser. Then see if they know how to change the default search provider, or if they even know what that is.

If you want to have even more fun, sit them in front of a computer with a first-time install of IE8 and Firefox. See which one makes it easier to change the default search provider.

Of course, you don't want to do this in real life because you'll lose the friend. But the point of these experiments is, Google's paid-for initial search placement is even better than Microsoft's deal, because they will still be the default search engine and they get to say they're giving everybody a choice. But they're not.

Re:If you need to do this...

[IorDMUX]

Verizon is making bing the only search site usable by Verizon customers.

Either they messed up on my Curve (because I can search Google just fine from the browser, it's even still the default since I used it last), Microsoft simply paid to have "bing" icon rolled onto my blackberry's app screen, or [citation needed].

Same deal with my Verizon BB Storm v1. The Bing icon appeared once, like Google and Verizon icons have in the past. I swept it aside and haven't heard from it since. In the meantime, my default search provider is still Google, and Bing doesn't even show up as an option.

Re:If you need to do this...

[fm6]

Learn to read. I made no apologies for what Verizon or MS did. Quite the opposite. But that doesn't validate the bad logic of TPP.

Re:If you need to do this...

[fm6]

Don't get me started on those early-switch fees. Some time back I managed to run up a big cell bill because I was collaborating with a guy two time zones away. So I called up Sprint and switched to a plan with more free minutes. (Which I ended up never using!) Then much later, I decided to switch to AT&T. Sprint hit me with the full early termination fee, because the plan I had switched two required me to stick with them for two years. It was almost that long, and I just sort of assumed that it had been long enough.

Which is what they count on. Look at your bill, or at the fancy "customer service" web site. You won't find the slightest mention of when your contract expires. If you lose track, they won't tell you unless you call them up and ask. And why should they? Those fees must represent a big revenue stream for them.

A more appropriate option

[StreetStealth]

The appropriate way to ink this deal would have been to simply make Bing the default instead of actually removing the competitors. It would have been worth less money to Verizon, but far more in terms of customer loyalty.

Re:A more appropriate option

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

It would have been worth less money to Verizon, but far more in terms of customer loyalty.

That's what ETFs are for!

Re:Wait for 2010

[lorenlal]

Verizon doesn't use SIMs. In fact, I'm pretty sure the SIM slot in my Verizon phone is disabled.

Bing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bing, the sound of thousands of Verizon customers finding a new provider...

Re:Bing...

[amRadioHed]

"bing" means ailment in Mandarin. It could be a coincidence, I'm just saying...

Re:Bing...

[Dahan]

"bing" means biscuit in Mandarin. It could be a coincidence, I'm just saying...

Re:Bing...

[amRadioHed]

Yeah, and ice and many other things. There's nothing funny about those meanings though.

Re:Bing...

[Alsee]

"bing" has recently come to mean crap in English. I guess it could just be a coincidence...

-

Thanks verizon.

[trapnest]

Thank you Verizon, always looking out for what's best for us.

Yet another reason why I left Verizon for T-Mobile.

That doesn't sound like a "push" to me . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Apparently Verizon has pushed an update that removes all search providers except Bing.

. . . more like a "shove."

Re:That doesn't sound like a "push" to me . . .

[SpecBear]

I think "thrust" might be more appropriate here.

Boycott, anyone?

[sethens]

Honestly -- did Microsoft learn nothing from the browser war? Its anti-trust lawsuits? Even if this sort of move is not technically illegal, they're sure to gain more enemies than friends in the tech community. I was never keen on the blackberry, but the sliver of interest I had in the product is now gone.

Re:Boycott, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anger at BB for this? I have no interest in owning a BB either personally, but if I was a VZ customer, I'd be pissed at VZ - not MS or BB. MS is simply trying to market a turd, and BB is simply BB. VZ is the one that crossed the lines, imo.

Re:Boycott, anyone?

[causality]

Honestly -- did Microsoft learn nothing from the browser war? Its anti-trust lawsuits? Even if this sort of move is not technically illegal, they're sure to gain more enemies than friends in the tech community. I was never keen on the blackberry, but the sliver of interest I had in the product is now gone.

What Microsoft learned is that the general public has an extremely short memory and will continue to assume good-faith on the part of companies who have given every reason to doubt that. It's similar to what politicians learned a long time ago.

Re:Boycott, anyone?

[pclminion]

It isn't a boycott unless paying customers leave. Every time I see an article like this there are always a slew of people who say "I'm not a customer of XXX, and I certainly never will be now!" I think Verizon is probably yawning right now. For a boycott to work, people who were a source of income to the company need to CEASE being that source of income. Otherwise it's just mental masturbation. The people who are actually customers always seem to be able to find an excuse not to take action. Personal convenience seems to trump ethics more and more.

It's not that I don't understand your position. I feel the same way. But we aren't the ones who can change the situation.

Re:Boycott, anyone?

[shentino]

Microsoft knows that the RIAA slaves in the DOJ don't care.

Re:Boycott, anyone?

[shrimppesto]

To be fair, I think that the browser wars taught Microsoft that their tactics actually do work -- to an extent. They went from being a minor player to being the dominant browser, largely by bundling and incorporating IE into Windows. Enemies in the tech community are no match for compliant sheep in the non-tech community.

Firefox isn't dominant because Microsoft withdrew their tactics. Firefox is dominant because MSIE stinks. Time will tell if the same happens to Bing

Re:Boycott, anyone?

[BitZtream]

You do realize that people other than the tech industry use smart phones right?

Also, you do realize that most of them really could give a fuck about 'Microsoft is evil', right?

Sorry, MS doesn't cater to techies, its not really all that profitable. It helps when you're fighting your way in the door trying to sell servers or software if the techs like you, but if they don't it doesn't really rule you out.

Techies generally lose arguments with management because they only thing you see is your narrow concern based on technology, completely ignoring ALL of the other effects on the business.

Slashdot can comment it up talking about how this is evil and Verizon and MS are going to be hated and lose customers because of it, and a year from now, Verizon will look back and the conversation between the execs will be something like:

<ExecA> Did we lose customers over it?
<ExecB> Yes, but they were geeks and we spent more money on data and dealing with their complaints via tech support that we're better off with out them.
<ExecA> How many customers did we loose?
<ExecB> Six, the rest of them just whined, moaned, and posted on slashdot about what they were going to do, then did nothing.
<ExecA> Bong!
<ExecB> Sure

Re:Boycott, anyone?

[OpenSourced]

Honestly -- did Microsoft learn nothing from the browser war? Its anti-trust lawsuits?

Yes, they learned that they still keep getting richer every day, and punishments are a joke.

Re:Boycott, anyone?

[Alsee]

While you have a point, it is still a very bad business decision to ignore public ill will against your brand. I never bought one of the Sony Evil Rootkit music CDs, and I was never dumb enough to buy any of Sony's MP3-wont-players, and I don't even remember how much other crap from Sony, but it still does matter when companies generate this sort of ill will. If I walk into a store and see the Sony brand name on a TV, or on a computer, or even on a freaking coffee mug, it pisses me off and 'll walk away. I'll walk to the next product, or walk to the next aisle, or hell it might even just put me in a hostile mood long enough that I happen to have wandered over to the next store in the mall before I actually pull out my wallet to buy some other brand of TV or whatever it was that I was inclined to buy.

A week from now, or a month from now, or a year from now, I may be in a store looking to buy a cellphone or whatever. And you stand there at the counter looking at all the various options, and you have to pick one. And to some extent you look at pricing and features and styling, but generally it's a relatively close call and you pretty much go with a gut reaction which one you like and want. And even if I don't consciously recollect this Bing story, it is still going to evoke a negative taint in that gut reaction. Given an array of roughly comparable choices, that sort of gut reaction substantially controls which particular product people select.

Verizon's calculation here, or their gamble here, or their oversight here, is whether the big fat check they got from Microsoft is worth more than the ill will this move is generating. Some current customers may quit, some people may deliberately change their immediate purchasing plans over it, but that is often less significant than the long term losses to the brand from ill will and word of mouth. And when I say "word of mouth", I don't just mean people talking about this story. I mean the general tone whenever Verizon comes up in conversation or whenever their ads are viewd. The gut reaction that Verizon sucks. The guy reaction that Verizon products suck. The gut reaction that Verizon ads are notably more annoying than ordinary random ads.

It's extremely hard to put a particular dollar value on that this hostility and people wanting to boycott, but it's like Verizon bought themselves a shitload of extremely powerful negative ads. You just can't buy ads with this sort of emotional impact. You can run ads all year long filled with happy beautiful sexy people using your product on beautiful tropical beaches, and not generate the slightest fraction of the brand association as you get from authentically angry customers, or even from authentically angry not-currently-customers.

Verizon better enjoy their five-hundred-million-pieces-of-silver from Microsoft.

-

I noticed that also...

[roc97007]

Last weekend I suddenly had a "Bing" icon on the top row of my Tour. First thought was "I don't want this" and moved it to the "unused" folder where all the built-in apps go for which I have no use.

You can smell the desperation in the air

[Tisha_AH]

Wow, AT&T with it's lock-in of the iPhone, now Verizon with a lock-in to Bing. Can it be that this is the only way that Microsoft can get people to use Bing?

I tried Bing, gave it a fair shake and ended up back with Google. To have my choices taken away by my phone carrier in a backroom deal between Microsoft and Verizon would get me looking for a new carrier.

Of course, Microsoft has been in this business for a long time so they can give lessons to Verizon.

Re:You can smell the desperation in the air

[DomNF15]

My question is - what new carrier are you going to look for? AT&T (bad) or TMobile (worse)?

Re:You can smell the desperation in the air

[ScrewMaster]

Can we have anyone admit to being a fan of Bing here without being modded down

Nah ... that would be too much like admitting you have herpes in front of a live television audience.

Re:You can smell the desperation in the air

[93 Escort Wagon]

My question is - what new carrier are you going to look for? AT&T (bad) or TMobile (worse)?

I was with Verizon for several years, then switched to T-Mobile about three years ago - and I'll never, ever go back to Verizon.

Have you even tried T-Mobile? I've been very happy with them. Imagine having a Bluetooth phone that - gasp - doesn't have most of its Bluetooth functionality disabled! If you're a long-time Verizon customer, you probably don't even know that your Bluetooth phone - as designed by its manufacturer, before Verizon got hold of it - has a lot of neat functionality that you'd be able to use if you were with any carrier other than Verizon. Make your own ringtones and upload them via Bluetooth (for free), addressbook sync via Bluetooth (for free), calendar sync via Bluetooth (for free), etc. etc.

Re:You can smell the desperation in the air

[DomNF15]

One of my coworkers has tried T-Mobile enough for the both of us. He can't get a signal in the building where we work, or in the apartment he lives in - he has to drive down the street to make a phone call. We live/work within 20 miles of NYC, not in some random bumblefuck, btw. T-mobile probably does have decent coverage in some places, but if it kinda sucks near one of the largest cities in the US, I'm skeptical about overall performance. I am a long time customer of Verizon, and I do know about all the features they lock me out of. They are far from perfect - but the alternatives are either a carrier with much shoddier 3G service or another carrier with the worst nation-wide coverage of the 3, but great customer service. I'm actually complaining about the lack of real options in terms of service providers. I want to be able to make phone calls all the time, and I don't want my calls to get dropped. Unfortunately the only provider that satisfies those requirements where I live is Verizon.

Re:You can smell the desperation in the air

[Zakabog]

Have you even tried T-Mobile?

Yes, it was my first carrier, they were cheap and I could make phone calls... most of the time...

I live in NYC (Staten Island), when I had shoddy cell phone coverage I chalked it up to "Well I'm in a basement", "Well I'm in a sparsely populated area", "Well there's a lot of trees around." I just kept coming up with excuses. When I would go rock climbing upstate (well really it's anywhere, I've never had T-Mobile service on a climbing trip) I'd say "I don't really need my cell phone now anyway, someone else will likely have a cell phone with service in case of an emergency..." Then I was considering a move to PA, in an area with absolutely no T-Mobile coverage for miles. I didn't want to continue with a service that was going to be non-existant 99% of the places I was going to be.

So I walked into a Verizon store to switch carriers (I had always considered switching to Verizon since they seem to have coverage everywhere I go.) My favorite part was when I wanted to cancel the contract. The T-Mobile representative asked me why I was switching, I said I have no service in the town I might be moving to, she asked me where that was so she could check the coverage map, I simply told her "I'm there right now, you don't need to check the map, I'm calling from a Verizon phone because my phone has no service at all."

Yes, they were a lot more than T-Mobile, and I hate that there's no option for Verizon's "Fave 5" with the 450 minute plan (I don't talk to that many people so 5 unlimited numbers outside the Verizon network with 450 minutes would be perfect) but to me it's worth it. Now I'm no longer the one without cell phone service, I'm usually the only one with service. At first I hated my samsung glyde, well I still hate that phone, and I hated not having the freedom with my phone that t-mobile offered with theirs, then Verizon announced the Droid and well I bought one rather quickly. Now I've got more freedom than I've ever had with a cell phone and coverage everywhere I go.

Re:You can smell the desperation in the air

[gmhowell]

Most slashbots would happily admit they have herpes, as that might imply that they've had sex.

Re:You can smell the desperation in the air

[dkf]

Of course, Microsoft has been in this business for a long time so they can give lessons to Verizon.

Looks to me like they're in an evil-ness sharing agreement with Satan acting as a personal go-between.

Re:You can smell the desperation in the air

[DrXym]

Bing seems like an imitation of Google in most respects. It works, it's fairly accurate but it's also largely redundant. Choice is still a good thing - sometimes routes to Google are slow or I simply don't want them knowing some of my business so I might use Bing or Yahoo.

This Verizon behaviour though... Forcing someone to exactly one search provider is an incredibly shitty thing to do. They could have advertised the new search provider on the default landing page, even automated the process of switching, and of course defaulted the setting to Bing for new phones. But to wipe away people's own choice on existing phones is just evil plain and simple. It is IMO bait and switch, especially as some users may have legitimate reasons for staying with Google.

What strikes me about US telcos / cable is how seemingly unregulated they are. How they are continuously caught trying to foist one heinous condition on their users after another. European telecoms seems so much better regulated. Yes there are terms and conditions but nothing remotely approaching the levels of evilness in the US.

You mean Fuck

[ArchieBunker]

Honestly how angry can you be if you still have to censor the word fuck? Whats next C*ap and F*rt?

Re:You mean Fuck

[Anonymous Coward]

and I thought he meant Fsck

Re:You mean Fuck

[Culture20]

Honestly how angry can you be if you still have to censor the word fuck?

Parent wasn't censoring, that was globbing. It expresses all of the following:
Feedback you Verizon
Fetlock you Verizon
Flack you Verizon
Flapjack you Verizon
Flashback you Verizon
Fleck you Verizon
Flick you Verizon
Flintlock you Verizon
Flock you Verizon
Flyspeck you Verizon
Forelock you Verizon
Frock you Verizon
Fuck you Verizon
Fullback you Verizon
and more!!

Re:You mean Fuck

[nacturation]

Also:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. And if Abraham Lincoln were alive today, he would smack you Verizon.

Re:You mean Fuck

[geckipede]

You reserve the right to self censor. We reserve the right to call it ridiculous, pointless and to mock it mercilessly.

Re:You mean Fuck

[Jaxoreth]

You reserve the right to self censor. We reserve the right to call it ridiculous, pointless and to mock it mercilessly.

And to miss the irony, apparently.

Re:You mean Fuck

[malkir]

That sounds a bit more like: f(.*)

Re:You mean Fuck

[occamsarmyknife]

What's so offensive about chaps and forts?

Innovation

[adoarns]

This is the genus of consumer-friendly innovation net neutrality would kill. Do we really want that?

Not for OS 5

[SlashDPC]

I run a leaked beta version of OS 5.0 on my Verizon Blackberry Tour and this change didn't affect me. I still have Google, Live Search, Wikipedia, and Dictionary.com for search engine choices.

Re:Not for OS 5

[afidel]

It's only for BIS users I would assume as VZW shouldn't have the ability to push to BES connected devices, which are you connecting your Tour to?

Re:Not for OS 5

[Mr. Spontaneous]

I'm running the official 5.0 on my Storm 9530 w/BIS and still have the same 4 search providers.

Any chance that Verizon accidentally pushed a malformed service book?

Re:Not for OS 5

[bigstrat2003]

No, this affects BES users as well. I had Bing randomly show up on my work BB, and had been wondering how the hell it got there as I didn't install it.

Re:Not for OS 5

[afidel]

That's pretty troubling, I wouldn't think the device should accept a service book from anywhere but it's authorized BES server. That means that *any* BB can probably be silently "upgraded" with a SB that compromises encryption (as an example) by the ISP.

Re:Not for OS 5

[dissy]

That's pretty troubling, I wouldn't think the device should accept a service book from anywhere but it's authorized BES server. That means that *any* BB can probably be silently "upgraded" with a SB that compromises encryption (as an example) by the ISP.

It's already been done elsewhere by ss8.
http://www.veracode.com/blog/2009/07/blackberry-spyware-dissected/

It is believed this is the same method the US government intercepts a blackberry with a warrant as well.

Re:Not for OS 5

[BriGal]

I have a Blackberry Pearl running v4.5 (I think? I'm still trying to figure out these smartphones) and I still have the same 4 providers as well. First thing I did when I saw this story was run and test out a few things. Even after clearing the cache, there is no Bing.

Re:Not for OS 5

[SlashDPC]

I use BIS user with two Gmail accounts, nothing special.

argh, really?

[TakeoffZebra]

So Google provides the OS for the big Droid push, then gets its trademark search engine blocked? Not only is this offensive to Google, but to the consumers as well. The fact that Verizon accepted a payoff for the sole purpose of limiting usability on the customer's end is infuriating. There comes a point when capitalism is taken too far...

Re:argh, really?

[Darkness404]

It isn't capitalism. If it was true capitalism there would be competition because there wouldn't be government regulations/payouts that helped Verizon and MS in the first place. If it wasn't for the government intentionally creating monopolies with the first AT&T then breaking up the artificial monopoly, we wouldn't have had Verizion in the first place. The mobile phone market != Capitalism.

Re:argh, really?

[TubeSteak]

If it was true capitalism there would be competition because there wouldn't be government regulations/payouts that helped Verizon and MS in the first place. If it wasn't for the government intentionally creating monopolies with the first AT&T then breaking up the artificial monopoly, we wouldn't have had Verizion in the first place.

Your conjecture is based on the premise that a monopoly wouldn't have formed anyways.
The only problem with that theory is that AT&T/Bell was already a monopoly by the time the Gov't got around to regulating them as one (1934).
Unregulated markets tend towards consolidation, cartels & oligopolies.

Re:argh, really?

[Darkness404]

Your conjecture is based on the premise that a monopoly wouldn't have formed anyways.

A monopoly may have formed, but a monopoly was formed in 1934, it would have surely would have broken up before the 1980s had it been a truly natural monopoly. Changing technologies and the shortcomings of AT&T would have forced at least local competition in high-density metropolitan areas almost certainly.

Unregulated markets tend towards consolidation, cartels & oligopolies.

Depends. Purely unregulated markets usually tend towards lots of individual companies. In unregulated markets, it is easy to make a company, leaving with lots of companies. Many will die out soon, but the sheer number of them prevents a large company from absorbing every single startup. Monopolies rarely form in unregulated markets. Simi-regulated markets though, are breeding grounds for monopolies. The cost to start a business is usually too high to allow many different companies and the weak rarely fail enough to weed out unprofitable companies, especially once they get too big (look at all the bailouts). In the US, we have too little regulation to prevent destructive monopolies and too much regulation to allow the natural market to take its course.

Re:argh, really?

[slimjim8094]

No, it's not capitalism but don't go dragging the big bad government scarecrow in here.

The thing about capitalism is it leads - inherently - to exactly the sort of situation you seem to think requires a government to create. When the first company goes around laying phone lines, or cable lines, or train tracks, or anything requiring a large initial investment in infrastructure, you usually get something known as a "natural monopoly". When Ma Bell put in their phone lines, it seems reasonable to think that another company could just put in a duplicate set of phone lines - obviously, AT&T has no incentive to share theirs. Unfortunately, this never happens. While you're trying to pay off your entirely redundant infrastructure, the incumbent will just undercut you.

Then, with networks connecting people, you have to worry about the network effect. If everybody (or almost everybody) uses AT&T, and they won't allow your new startup to connect to their network - well, you're screwed before you begin.

The situation is the same with cellphone market. The tendency is for one company to do it all.

Food for thought: Without government intervention, you'd still have Ma Bell but you wouldn't be able to use your own phone, or a modem. There wouldn't be any other cell companies - it'd all be Bell, because they would just prevent interconnection. Want a cellphone, and want to talk to people on landlines? Gotta be Bell.

Please, if you're going to spout off about the evils of government, at least be right. There's plenty of things to be annoyed at the government about, but regulation of natural monopolies is not one of them (unless, of course, you run a natural monopoly...)

Re:argh, really?

[dwye]

A monopoly may have formed, but a monopoly was formed in 1934, it would have surely would have broken up before the 1980s had it been a truly natural monopoly. Changing technologies and the shortcomings of AT&T would have forced at least local competition in high-density metropolitan areas almost certainly.

AT&T was never a monopoly. Before it was broken up (and after) I was stuck on a little phone company that covered about a 20 mile diameter area, with equipment that was always about 20 years behind the state of the art. At 1200 baud, you could not read from a host in either of the local big cities (both on Bell PA) due to all the eighth note characters showing up due to line noise (IBM-PC as my machine, then). I often WISHED that AT&T *had* been a monopoly, as our service would have been much better. OTOH, when my scout troop visited the phone office, the obsolete electro-mechanical switches were much more interesting to watch than the modern digital one that handled the newest 20% of customers, just as a medieval tower clock is more interesting to look at than a quartz watch.

Also, you clearly don't understand the meaning of a natural monopoly. If it was a natural monopoly, then changing technologies would not have mattered much as the beneficial scaling effects would have swamped any company trying to compete, unless the state utility commission made rules that benefited the local competitors over AT&T (which is why my local company survived with its crappy equipment for so long).

Re:argh, really?

[FlyingBishop]

In a purely unregulated market, wireless is impossible because all companies would be attempting to simultaneously broadcast over the same frequencies.

Furthermore, they could gradually raise the termination fee (no early termination fee, just termination fees) to the point where no competitor could possibly compete. Regulation is an absolute necessity.

Now, you might argue for minimal regulation, but even the assertion that minimal regulation is intrinsically preferable to maximal regulation is unadulterated bullshit. Every case is different, and the optimal amount of regulation is that which restricts the ability of producers to earn excessive profits.

Re:argh, really?

[Myopic]

Your descriptions don't jibe with my experiences with markets. I'll leave it at that.

Oblig. Simpsons

[Azureflare]

Ha ha!

From all the horror stories, I actually am glad I have ATT rather than Verizon. Gosh, I never thought I'd say that.

At least I CHOSE to be locked in with Apple. I knew what I was signing up for.

Honestly, I feel sorry for us all. It's important to have at least one major provider that is open and not locked in.

It seems everyone is copying Apple's model now, which is NOT what I was expecting! Where's the innovation guys?

Re:Oblig. Simpsons

[KublaiKhan]

Apple didn't originate the lock-in with exclusive hardware and upgrade path business model. You can probably blame IBM for that one, though goodness knows enough computer manufacturers have used variations on that theme in the past...

(Hell, I'm sure it goes back to the Jacquard loom)

Re:Oblig. Simpsons

[Anonymous Coward]

> Honestly, I feel sorry for us all. It's important to have at least one major provider that is open and not locked in

Sounds like the N900 (open Linux platform). The provider can't reach into your device and remove features. YOU have the root password, and THEY don't, just like things should be.

Plus you can do things like use VOIP apps, no matter what the vendor might wish.

Why so many people buy into the walled gardens has always been a mystery to me.

Re:Oblig. Simpsons

[Azureflare]

Ah yeah, you're totally right. It makes perfect sense that a new(er) industry would repeat the timeline of previous industries. It seems like they always go through the same phases. I bet there's a Ph.D. dissertation somewhere about that :)

Also, awesome sig. Dirk Gently rocks!

Re:Oblig. Simpsons

[mjwx]

At least I CHOSE to be locked in with Apple. I knew what I was signing up for.

This is really Pythonesque.

AT&T Customer: Ha, your telco is a tyrant, you foul peasant.
VZ Customer: Well so it yours.
AT&T Customer: But I CHOSE my tyrant.
VZ Customer: What was your other choice?
AT&T Customer: Your tyrant.

But really, saying that you've chosen to have a tyrant is like saying you've chosen to have Syphilis. You may have chosen for yourself but that doesn't stop it from being a stupid choice.

Re:Oblig. Simpsons

[Drgnkght]

The quote originates from Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan". Though I agree about Dirk Gently.

Support open hardware and software

[MichaelSmith]

I own an openmoko, which has some hardware limitations, but I like the fact that I control its configuration almost as far as I control the configuration of my laptops and servers.

If you don't want to be treated as a captive audience by your service provider then put your money down on a phone which gives you control.

I know its a cliche, but with Apple et al getting on the app store bandwagon, and google linking phones, the OS and advertising, the old GNU issues around Free software are becoming more real.

Re:Support open hardware and software

[Darkness404]

Yeah, but the difference seems to be between usability and the total lack of. While I would like an open device, I would also like something reliable. For example, the last time I checked OpenMoko, calls still wouldn't work all the time. Its kinda important for me that my OS doesn't randomly not answer calls or receive text messages.

Really, even though its closed, Android is a nice alternative. It is stable, has lots of application support, lots of phones and most are easily rooted to do whatever with. Yeah, mid 2006 OpenMoko had promise, now I don't see the point. They really failed to deliver.

Re:Support open hardware and software

[Hairy1]

I have a OpenMoko as well. It's all very well putting your money where your mouth is but how about the makers of OpenMoko actually finishing the software so the thing will run. The version that was sold had a hardware bug that requires fixing. There has never been a solid version of the software. The Android phones at least actually delivered on being a phone.

Re:Support open hardware and software

[mark3748]

Android is open, the Google apps pack, including the GPS, is licensed on top.

And this is the reason for Android

[NeutronCowboy]

Google actually saw this coming, and this is why they put some effort behind the Android. As far as I can tell, the agreement is for specific types of phones, and doesn't cover the Android. Google doesn't want Verizon and ATT-style companies to choke off a giant market for Google's advertising business. Conversely, I'm quite happy that Google is going the route of releasing an open phone, because it means that a significant item in my computing gear won't necessarily be controlled by a company like Verizon and ATT.

SEO fantasy

[speedlaw]

Anyone who has fought Search Engine Wars can feel this. "hey, we'll make you the ONLY choice in your category" is a seductive argument. I guess if you are Microsoft you CAN buy that placement.

msft/appl/goog

[supernova87a]

Does this mean that the iPhone will not be coming to Verizon?

Shameful...

[QuietLagoon]

From now on, whenever Microsoft talks of providing choice, remember this deal in which Microsoft appears to have removed any choice of search from Verizon's users.

Re:Shameful...

[TubeSteak]

From now on, whenever Microsoft talks of providing choice, remember this deal in which Verizon appears to have removed any choice of search from Verizon's users.

Fixed that for you.
Verizon is definitely not a victim in this.
Despite the mountain of cash waved in their face, Verizon could have said no.

Re:Shameful...

[QuietLagoon]

1) when you quote a message of mine, do not bold words that I have not bolded in my message. I have to question why you would want to alter the true intent of what I have posted here.
.

2) I did not say that Verizon was the victim. The customers of Verizon are the victim here.
.

So I'll repeat, when Microsoft says that they offer choice, keep in mind this agreement between Microsoft and Verizon in which users' choice is effectively eliminated. It appears to be typical of Microsoft's business dealings. When Microsoft is incapable of competing, it artificially eliminates its competitors via lawyers.

Re:Shameful...

[locus_standi]

Yeh, kill the messenger...

Re:Shameful...

[BeanThere]

You have an "interesting" view of culpability; by your reasoning, if I pay a hitman to kill someone, I bear no responsibility for the murder that occurs because "the hitman could have said no" and is the one who carried out my request, not me. Does that really make sense to you, or are you just defending MS blindly?

Re:Shameful...

[BitZtream]

1) when you quote a message of mine, do not bold words that I have not bolded in my message. I have to question why you would want to alter the true intent of what I have posted here.

Hey, go fuck yourself douche bag! This is a fairly common practice on slashdot, and is generally used to point out how fanboys got it wrong.

The bold is to point out the fact that your quote was not a direct, but modified quote, which is another thing that does along with 'There fixed that for you'.

Guess what, he used it properly and corrected your mildly retarded statement, now if you could just fix your reading comprehension skills and get over yourself, maybe you'll do better next time.

Whats better is your reply is still makes it clear, like the original that you're just an anti-MS fanboy and ignoring that Verizon is more responsible for the problem here than MS. Its okay, we know you have problems.

Re:Shameful...

[acoustix]

Just because its a fairly common practice doesn't mean that it's the correct thing to do. It's dishonest.

Re:Shameful...

[Myopic]

It is untenable poppycock to suggest that Microsoft doesn't share some blame with Verizon.

Why phones have to be decoupled from the network

[Johnny Loves Linux]

This demonstrates exactly why the phone network provider has to be decoupled from the cell phone vendor. What is the subtext of this? That the consumers are nothing more than serfs for the phone network providers to buy and sell as they please. That's the point. You have NO choice with Verizon. It's not YOUR phone it's THEIR phone.

Microsoft couldn't pay enough people to use exclusively bing *and* keep their word, so why bother with the common citizen and instead go directly to the phone network? After all, the phone network is the only the thing that matters. Who gives a F*** about you and me and what *we* want? Certainly not verizon with this maneuver. The worst part? I don't think it has even occurred to the management at verizon how deeply offensive this maneuver is. To FORCIBLY lock people into 1 choice of search engine?!?! WTF? What are they smoking?!?!

I think it's time that Congress and the President (who's a blackberry customer) is informed of what exactly verizon thinks of their freedom of choice. Talk about Dumb Ass Maneuver!

Heh

[Acecoolco]

I was actually about to buy a blackberry for the holidays and switch from a pay as you go phone provider to a contact provider. However, do to this, I will not be choosing Verizon and I will not be purchasing a Blackberry. Shame for them, because I make a lot of overseas calls (currently at 15 cents per minute from my phone, or 2.1 cents per minute from Skype)

Re:Heh

[Acecoolco]

Due to this.. not do to this...

Re:Heh

[liquidsin]

the article mentions bb and other smartphones. i wouldn't pin too much blame on bb for this. my (non vzw) bb still works just the same, and it's definitely a great device.

Can't you learn anything from the Scandinavia?

[rzei]

Go and demand your gsm subscriptions and your mobiles separately.

Easy as that. Unless you are already past the point when there are only these mega corporations (Verizon + AT&T) selling you what ever bigger companies want.

Buy Nokia :) (The cheapest ones, you don't get angry when destroy the damn thing next friday when you're drunk! You don't really need all those fancy features, you just want to make a call, send an sms and every phone can run Opera Mini)

Re:Can't you learn anything from the Scandinavia?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I still own a Nokia 3390 you insensitive clod.

(I love my iPhone, but I also loved my 3390.)

Re:Can't you learn anything from the Scandinavia?

[tepples]

Go and demand your gsm subscriptions and your mobiles separately.

U.S. carriers tend not to give a discount for bringing your own handset.

Re:Can't you learn anything from the Scandinavia?

[natehoy]

Anyone in the US can go out and buy an unlocked phone that is compatible with your carrier of choice (note that the US has at least three major competing technologies, none of them compatible with European GSM, so you have to make sure the phone you choose works with the carrier you choose). Then you buy a SIM chip and install it (or, in the case of Verizon, activate your IMEI with Verizon).

Unfortunately, the major phone companies in the US charge the same whether you get your phone from them or you bring your own, and the subsidies are significant. So the only things you gain for your extra money are the flexibility to move from company to company and complete control over your phone (carrier can't turn off features if it's not their phone, though of course they can block access to specific data services if they want).

But we have LOTS of month-to-month phone plans you can buy without a contract at all, and that are SIM-chip based. Most of them are referred to in the US as "prepaid" plans, and you'll find a bevy of them at any convenience store or electronics store.

It's just that few Americans choose them because the subsidies that the major companies offer are actually pretty good deals, providing you are willing to commit to a specific phone company for two years or so and end up with a phone that only works on their service at the end of your contract. Most Americans are going to throw away a cell after two years anyway, so we'll just recommit to a new 2-year contract to get a new cell phone with that "new phone" smell. Some will continue their contracts month-to-month with the same carrier. Most will just get a fresh phone and renew their contract, and maybe change carriers at the switchover.

If more major carriers offered a significant discount for "bring your own" plans, maybe the American marketplace would shift to an "own the phone, then choose the carrier" model. But with multiple incompatible wireless technologies, once you buy a phone you're locked into a small subset of wireless carriers anyway.

Well,

[azav]

looks like I'm not using my Crackberry for search if that is the case. Thankfully, Google is still an option on mine.

Guess I'll have to actually go to the the Google page to search if this happens.

Go get Google app for BB?

[marcushnk]

I'm in Australia with a Telstra BB, but can you install Google app ?
That will give you Google search.
http://www.google.com/mobile

Re:Droid

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple and AT&T have been only allowing one set of search providers, stores, Web browsers, and API. And people flock to their products.

Someone forces their devices to do the same thing, people scream bloody murder.

Why? Because people *had* the choice before, and it was taken away from them. With Apple, you know you will be using Safari or nothing, iTMS or nothing, Apple App store or nothing, and AT&T (in the US) or nothing. The deal with this device is that people didn't sign up knowing that their choices of search providers would be taken away.

So much for consumer choice!

[davecrusoe]

Unfortunately, here's yet another reason to MOVE MY PHONES AWAY FROM VERIZON. Recently, we found out that Verizon was charging for data (1mb of data transfer) when I accidentally hit the "Get it now" key that is hard-coded, pre-programmed, into my phone - without any labeling and without any option to repurpose the keystroke.

This seems to come on top of everything else as yet another reason to choose another vendor - Google, hopefully! - and not Verizon.

Re:So much for consumer choice!

[natehoy]

My father-in-law ran into that, and had data blocked on his phones. Verizon is MUCH more reluctant to do this than AT&T was, but they'll still do it if you insist.

Re:So much for consumer choice!

[MistrBlank]

My wife purchased a pantech matrix that was configured the same way. If you're at the home screen, if you hit the center button it would go to the web and start their service immediately. There was no way to repurpose the button and AT&T insisted when we buy the phone I should get a data plan for it. I'm not paying an unnecessary $30 a month for a data plan she'll (admittedly herself) never use. They wouldn't even place a block on data for the phone from their side (ludicrous, don't offer a service you can stumble onto).

Needless to say, you can set the home so that entering their service defaults to about:blank so the stumble factor is eliminated. You can also remove all of the wap.att and proxy configuration so that it never accesses the data service. Ultimately this disabled multimedia messaging on the phone though because apparently while they can't force SMS through a cheaper data line multimedia requires it. We're not complaining though, it's a pain in the ass paying for your stupid coworkers to send you 50,000 pictures of their kids that we don't care about and is costing us for their asshatery.

The entire cell phone industry needs to be investigated for the raping they do of their customers.

Re:So much for consumer choice!

[natehoy]

Hmm, when was this? My father-in-law switched to AT&T from Verizon over the summer, and he took the phone back to the AT&T store and asked them to block the data plan because he kept clicking on the prominent web button. The rep actually apologized for the inconvenience, blocked the data plan, reversed the charges, and asked my father-in-law to test it right there in the store to make sure the data plan was blocked.

I think both AT&T and Verizon are requiring the purchase of a data plan for certain smartphones now. I believe that started with AT&T back in September or October. My wife wanted a Blackberry without a data plan, and we beat the "must have data plan" deadline by about a month.

But if they let you buy a phone and didn't require the data plan, they should block the data for you and refund the accidental charges. It was absolutely no problem for us.

Of course, my company does a lot of business with AT&T and I'm actually the accountholder through the "AT&T Premier" plan, so maybe AT&T puts a little extra effort into not pissing off customers associated with major business accounts. :)

They're gonna need more money...!

[kcoriginal]

I hope for Verizon's sake that Verizon got the money in that deal... cause this is just another reason that my money stops at the end of this contract... 102 days to go... Woooo Hooooo!!!

Re:They're gonna need more money...!

[palegray.net]

This sounds like an excellent reason to dump your contract now. If they try charging you for early termination after pulling a stunt like this, I'm confident you'll be able to find an attorney who can change their mind.

Re:Wait for 2010

[mlts]

It would be nice for Verizon and Sprint to use R-UIM cards. From what I know, Chinese CDMA providers use these on a widespread basis. It saves them money over time because a user can upgrade devices without needing to have the cellular provider need to enter the device's IMEI number at their end.

Govt?

[countach]

Doesn't the government have anything to say about this? I think here in Australia the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission would probably have something to say about something like this. Anti-competive behavior or something.

Re:Govt?

[Chysn]

Doesn't the government have anything to say about this?

I'm no free-market fundamentalist or anything, but if customers really care, that will be enough.

Not on mine

[Drakin020]

I have a Blackberry Curve with Verizon, and I still have Google listed.

My Experience

[duchessjane]

After reading several Blackberry message board posts from Verizon users that got Binged, I kept checking for it every time I did a reboot or battery pull. After one reboot, I noticed a new icon with the Bing logo. I clicked it. It said it wanted to change my default and had the "I Agree" and "I Disagree" choices. I clicked "I Disagree" and then deleted the Bing icon. I'm a Verizon Blackberry user with Google as my default search. Bing doesn't even appear on the menu.

Re:My Experience

[Tweezer]

Mod parent up! This is the same way I get rid of all of the bloatware that comes preinstalled on a new PC. When you get the license agreements, just disagree with them. The software is immediately uninstalled.

Re:My Experience

[dangitman]

I kept checking for it every time I did a reboot or battery pull.

A "battery pull"? Why would you do that? How often is it necessary? Have you considered returning the product as defective?

Re:My Experience

[Myopic]

Huh, I've never gotten anything like that on a PC I bought. Do the software manufacturers pay you to deal with their 'bloatware'? Do they cut you a check, or pay you via PayPal, or some other way?

Re:My Experience

[IorDMUX]

I had the same experience with my Verizon Blackberry Storm. A Bing icon appeared once (like the Facebook icon, the Google Talk icon, and all the other icons that I just ignore and push into an unused folder). I never even clicked it.

The result? Google is still the default search provider, with Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, and "Live Search" as the other options.

Maybe the Storm users were exempt, but this seems like a big deal over pretty much nothing.

No, not exactly

[bsDaemon]

I have a BlackBerry Storm through Verizon, and the other day I noticed the Bing icon show up on my screen, which I thought was strange, but seeing as how I'm sort of generally disenchanted with Google these days, I didn't really care. However, if you open up the actual browser app instead of clicking the new icon, then you can still search via Google by default in there without any disruption.

Verizon didn't remove search choice, and they aren't forcing Bing, they just stuck an extra icon on the phone. Delete it and move on. Seriously.

Re:No, not exactly

[j_rhoden]

I can confirm this is true. They pushed a Bing icon to my Storm that propmted me to download the Bing Mobile app, but Google is still my default search in the BlackBerry browser.

Re:No, not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the same thing happened to me. That there's now a Bing icon on my Storm's home screen is no big deal really. What is a big deal is that the phone _automatically_ downloaded the Bing update without prompting.

Naturally, it chose to do this on a rare day when I really needed the phone for my job. The stupid thing blew almost its entire battery downloading the damn update and left me out in the cold. Idiots.

Anyway, I've got a Droid now.

Re:No, not exactly

[j_rhoden]

Yeah, the Bing icon showing up on its own did kind of piss me off too. That I had a problem with.

Get out of your contract

[Blasphemy]

This sounds like a materially adverse change to your Blackberry service. You should be able to cancel your contract without an ETF. Maybe if enough people do this, they will fix it.

Re:Get out of your contract

[jmcharry]

I ran into something similar with them a bit over a decade ago. I wanted to change long distance carriers, and they had changed their policy to my great disadvantage. I pointed out to the phone rep that they were in breach of contract. It was fixed in ten minutes, with the former nominal fee waived. It might work.

This is what the whole internet would be like ...

[Skapare]

... if we had let corporations create it. And it's what it will be like if we don't keep them in check with net neutrality.

Reminds me why Verizon didn't get the iPhone

[jinushaun]

Verizon hates choice, that's why they passed up on the original iPhone. For them, it's their network, their phone.

Illegal?

[muphin]

Limiting your phone to a certain search provider, would be considered illegal right? not providing options to competitors
1. you have the anti-trust suit going on; now Microsoft makes a deal to remove options from a phone limiting it to Microsoft search, providing no choice, illegal?
2. a non critical change from an update without the user opting out of the change could be illegal?
3. isn't a phone deal, the phone, the phones connection and the phones calls, not what's on the phone? if its the later than isn't the company making the changes liable for damages?
4. in the contract does it state your locked into using bing as a search? and if Verizon is making money off your searches aren't you entitled to know that?

i am interested to see if a suit follows after this change, how it effected contracts before the microsoft deal

Mass stop pay

[Skapare]

Would Verizon survive a mass stop pay? Or would they ask the government for a bailout?

Re:Wait for 2010

[pydev]

No, it wouldn't be nice "for them", it would be nice for you because it would make it easy for you to switch phones and providers as you like. And that's why they don't do it.

Illegal?

[DoofusOfDeath]

Does this constitute an illegal play on MS/Verison's part(s)?

It seems like, as a team, they're abusing Verizon's monopoly power over people who are locked in via contract.

Alternatively, if Verizon has intentionally reduced the usability of their service, does this represent a material breach of contract with their customers?

Pork chop ugly

[HangingChad]

The move is part of the five-year search and advertising deal Verizon signed with Microsoft in January for a rumored $500m.

Reminds me of my dad saying someone was so ugly you had to hang a pork chop around their neck to find them a date. If Microsoft search is so great, why do they have pay Verizon a half-billion dollars to be their friend?

awwww

[sbeckstead]

Wow, if you wait long enough they will re-instate the choice but charge $5 per month to maintain the choice. It's the Verizon way..Yeah we get a buck for that...

Re:Wait for 2010

[lorenlal]

As does my BB... But like I said, I'm pretty sure it's disabled.

Thus Nexus One

[Alomex]

The real motivation behind Nexus One is the fear of Google of being locked out by cell phone providers. If any other provider follows suit, I can pretty much guarantee that Google will give Nexus Ones away for free.

Why is anyone supprised by this

[agentc0re]

We've seen all the major carries do something to this same effect dozens of times and even more frequent with these smart phones becoming more efficient tools. They know it'll piss customers off, but they know you want the phone you have. They also know a lot of people aren't willing to cut their contract and pay the fee. There are a few out there that probably would do this, but it's not enough to make a difference.

All Your Base Are Belong To Us.

If they truly feared people leaving them for doing something like this, they wouldn't do it. It's unfortunate that most of their pissed off customers can't leave either, no one wants to take a 300 dollar hit to make a "point".

Ohh, I just thought of something though. If you could make a site... lets call it, "letsleaveverizon.com". On that site you see a couple things. One being a counter of how many people would agree to leaving if the amount was above 10000(just throwing out numbers). You'd also see a link to click on that would allow you to "join". This join would only send you an email once the counter reached the specified goal. You'd obviously want a Captya to prevent unnecessary joins. Lastly a paragraph explaining the simple guide lines, like.. Don't join if you are not 100% on board with leaving once the goal is reached. Also the leave can be canceled if Verizon meets the criteria... IE: Adding back my option to choose, because after all that is why you bought the phone in the first place.

Thoughts?

Re:Droid

[awyeah]

Oh man I wish I had mod points for this one. Someone mod this AC up!

Data Charges

[Mista2]

Well I guess if they are going to default to to a certain search engine, I guess they could make th edata free to that site -- oh, hangon, I'd probably still pay to use Google instead.

I use Opera on my Verizon Blackberry

[the_rajah]

My default search engine is still Google. So far so good. I also use the Gmail application for my email and Google calendar rather than the somewhat clunky RIM mail.

cool.

[JustNiz]

Verizon have just made it easier for me to choose my next phone and carrier.
Now it definately wont be Verizon.

Re:cool.

[Chysn]

Verizon have just made it easier for me to choose my next phone and carrier.

Verizon?!

Now it definately wont be Verizon.

Aw!

exactly what you expect from Verizon

[danlip]

This is exactly what I'd expect from Verizon and it is why I Ieft them 3 years ago. They customize all the phones they sell to lock out functionality that comes with the basic phone model (like being able to transfer a picture between your computer and phone without paying them for each image). They are evil and screw their customers for every penny they can get. Existing customers should definitely be able to get out of their contracts. If you are not under contract you should just leave.

In Soviet Capitalism...

[erroneus]

... Verizon sells its customers!

There was probably a funnier way to say that, but I think the point is made. Here we have this situation that appears again and again. Businesses who collect our money in giant leaf-piles of money somehow feel it's not enough and end up selling their customers... their trust, their personal data and personality information and habits and preferences... it sickens me but it stopped surprising me long ago.

Re:In Soviet Capitalism...

[Alsee]

Businesses who collect our money in giant leaf-piles of money

Even worse, those businesses who collect our money in giant leaf-piles of pork chops.

Sorry :)
I hate it when a word is redundantly duplicated in a sentence like that. I especially hate it when I find myself stuck doing it.

P.S. Yes 'redundantly duplicated' was deliberately ironical. Like rain on your wedding day.

-

Re:Wait for 2010

[DomNF15]

Actually, all of Verizon's "world" phones have SIM card slots so that your phone will function overseas, where GSM is the standard. My friend's Verizon BB Tour has a SIM card slot and actually lets you choose what network you want to use, he has a prepaid AT&T SIM card in there right now that he can fail over to if there's no Verizon coverage.

Let me see....

[RoboRay]

Highly irate but factually incorrect ranting.

I bet this was submitted by kdawson.

Yep. How'd I guess that?

Verizon and Microsoft

[laing]

I dumped Verizon over 5 years ago when they partnered with M$ for "myvzw". One day I went to log into the portal (which worked fine from a mobile phone so it didn't require too many html capabilities) and it said I was on an incompatible browser and needed to upgrade. The problem was that I was on a SPARC. I'd been using a SPARC with Netscape for years with no trouble and then suddenly they said I needed exploder. AT&T has better phones anyway. I recently dumped Netflix because they require Silverlight to view movies on-line. It's just a coincidence that the CEO of Netflix sits on the M$ board of directors... People who say Microsoft has changed its ways and is no longer anti-competitive just aren't looking in the right places.

Re:Verizon and Microsoft

[BitZtream]

Awe look, another idiot who thinks saying 'exploder' and M$ is witty and cool.

It stopped being cool when you angsty teenagers used it for freaking everything 10 years ago, now it just makes you look retarded.

Adding to the making you look retarded part is the fact that this is pretty common practice and is done by many organizations, including software on your computers right now.

Re:Verizon and Microsoft

[kenbo0422]

Sue Netflix and Microsoft for being anti-competitive. Everyone KNOWS Silverlight isn't even close to mainstream, so it has to be a ploy to push a product into the faces of the web. It worked in Europe. They need to have their toes stomped on a few more times to get the message.

Re:Verizon and Microsoft

[regular_gonzalez]

M$? You mean MS - Microsoft?
Wait, oh, I get it -- it's because they like money?
I also like money, I wonder if I can get my /. name changed to regu£ar_gonza£ez.

Re:Verizon and Microsoft

[dangitman]

Awe look, another idiot who thinks saying 'exploder' and M$ is witty and cool.

Says the person replacing the 's' with a 'z' in his slashdot handle. I believe something about tarnished cookware applies here.

Re:Verizon and Microsoft

[Alsee]

Nice one. Olympic score nine point seven.
You'd have gotten a perfect ten-oh for elegance had you left out the cookware quip.

-

Install the provider neutral Blackberry Firmware

[ya really]

The nice part about blackberries is you're not bound to use the phone provider's firmware. You can go to like the crackberry forums and grab the neutral firmware they post there and simply delete the vendors.xml file and install with the setup. The subby should use the search engine he/she so loves so much a bit more :) and find alternatives. I never install the Verizon firmware.

Not like I care...

[argStyopa]

...since my corporate masters have completely locked mine down, anyway. No outside apps, no non BB Enterprise server connections, nothing.

It makes it SUCH a useful MULTIFUNCTION device, when you're slaved to the default apps.

Re:Not like I care...

[Dunbal]

There's nothing stopping you from going out and buying your own "multifunction device" and putting whatever you want on it. However the device you ARE using doesn't belong to you, it belongs to your employer. Whine all you want, and it still won't change the fact that it cost you absolutely nothing, and is meant to be used ONLY for what your employer wants you to use it for.

Re:Not like I care...

[argStyopa]

That response is almost cliche by now.

So if I need to check train or flight schedules, and would like to use a browser that's easily 2x the speed of the crap default BB one, I should get my own device?
If I'd like a USEFUL map application that can tell me where this customer is based on my current interpolated location since I've now managed to get lost on the way to my sales call, I should get my own device?

My point is not that I want to play games or music - fine, blacklist those apps. I'd like to be able to do my WORK better with my WORK OWNED multifunction device. Their retarded lockdown policy makes that harder.

Discovered the same with Pipex UK

[Siddly]

This evening I was asked to look at firefox for a relative as she was getting this Bing thing that wouldn't go away. I was puzzled and thought there must be a virus that caused it. However, tomorrow is the day when Pipex disappears as her ISP.

Fucking stupid

[mysidia]

Customer choice matters.

When you gave customers a choice between A and B, and most picked A.

Letting the manufacturer of B pay you $500 million to remove the choice of A and force all your customers to use B is going to hurt you in the long run.

They will now switch to the company that lets you pick A.

And hopefully, you and the manufacturer of B will soon be under investigation for abuse of a monopoly.

I look forward to sending my complaints into the FCC, and providing as input as possible in the FCC investigation of this matter that is sure to come.

Re:Wait for 2010

[natehoy]

Maybe they've changed it. I was thinking about the Verizon World 88xx series phone which has a SIM chip, but uses the European (850MHz) band and not the US (900MHz) band for GSM. That, and the fact that Verizon locked out the GPS unless you bought Telenav, made me choose AT&T for my Blackberry.

but who to go with?

[xSauronx]

really, i cant think of a cell provider now that i dont hear some serious level of bitching about. im in rural eastern nc, the main provider here is us cellular. its meh. cdma phones/coverage.

who is actually a good provider that people arent always bitching about? US Cellular has good customer service and rates, but older phones and a slow network

everyone says verizon locks down the phones
that at&t has bad customer service and so-so coverage
sprint has horrible customer service
t-mobile has limited coverage areas

does anyone have a provider that, for the most part, they are happy with?

Re:but who to go with?

[plover]

About four years ago AT&T customer service sucked donkey balls, and that included the AT&T store staff. They sat around waiting for the same screens as the 1-800-AT&T-DUH people, and it also took them 20 minutes of dicking around just to bring up your account to handle a question. But in the last year or two, though, the in-store people been very responsive and fast, and I haven't needed to use the customer service line at all.

I think part of their past problems were the merger with Cingular and the former AT&T Wireless, and that their systems never were properly integrated. But they seem to have fixed some of those problems.

As far as coverage goes, well, I don't leave my 3G city limits very often, so it's OK for what I need. I'm sure a road warrior would see it very differently.

As far as lockdown goes, I'd place AT&T somewhere between Verizon (phuckin' phone prison) and T-Mobile (please just send us money, we don't care what you do with the phones.) You can buy an unlocked GSM phone from just about anywhere and it'll work fine on the AT&T or T-Mobile networks with no restrictions. But AT&T and Apple sure as hell worked together to lock down the iPhone. There's a purchase I'm regretting.

Re:but who to go with?

[hazem]

does anyone have a provider that, for the most part, they are happy with?

I generally despise the whole contract-lock-in for service model that seems to prevalent in the US (phones, cable, internet, etc), so I try to avoid it where possible. For many years, I used Virgin Mobile for my phone service. It had pretty good coverage (used Sprint's network) and the monthly costs were reasonable. The biggest downside with them are the teen-oriented phones (and horrible ring tones).

I moved once to a city where only Verizon or AT&T was available, so I took Verizon. The coverage was good and the service was "okay" - they had a tendency to simply shut off the phone if there was any dispute over the billing. One thing I liked was that I could use Bitpim to download and upload my contacts list. Though as soon as the contract was over, I needed a new phone and refused to get a new contract so I switched back to Virgin Mobile.

My VM phone died, so I recently switched to StraightTalk (http://www.straighttalk.com/), which is available through Walmart. They have a handful of nice phones and the service is on Verizon's network (some of the menus and prompts indicate it's connected to Tracfone). $45/month unlimited everything, including a "not bad" internet browser. I got the Samsung R451C and I have enjoyed it a lot. It seems like a quality phone and I like that I can put whatever sounds/mp3s on it I want for ring-tones (they don't even have a way to buy ringtones). My biggest irritation is that I cannot find a way to download/upload the address book.

For me, the lack of a binding contract is a huge "feature" and I'm pleased to have a decent phone and a good price for my service. With this kind of option, I simply cannot imagine locking myself into a contract with Verizon or AT&T just to get a fancier phone.

Re:but who to go with?

[DikSeaCup]

Well, I've not had a problem with "horrible" customer service with Sprint. They've been mostly good. There have been a few issues that have popped up recently (browse for "Sprint" in my blog at http://blog.ericdives.com/) but I must say, for day to day stuff they're excellent.

They all have their problems. Really, it's all a matter of personal experience. For me, Sprint hasn't been that bad.

Re:but who to go with?

[Sonic McTails]

Having recently driven cross-country, I find claims of T-Mobile's coverage sucking are generally overblown. T-Mobile has roaming agreements with most of the major GSM regionals and with AT&T (in places), so most of the time, the phone will roam onto another network. T-Mobile has full data roaming, and doesn't charge for domestic roaming, so coverage is usually better than what the coverage maps suggest it will be.

Re:To whomever modded me "troll" :

[Anonymous Coward]

In no way, shape or form was my search choice removed.

You sir are NOT experiencing the same issue as everyone else thus your input is irrelevant and unnecessary. If you would do a bit of research, you would see that the Bind Icon showing up uninvited, and the removal of the search options are two separate issues.

The problem that you are NOT experiencing is that when you open the default browser, and click Goto (or from the default homepage) and attempt to search then ONLY search provider in the dropdown list is now Bing.

Just wait, VZ has already said that they have plans to push this to every BB Model, you time is coming too.

Its funny that you look like an even bigger idiot after your 2nd post than your first post.

Re:Droid

[Rocketship Underpant]

Actually, the iPhone lets you change your search provider in the configuration settings.

Re:Wait for 2010

[bertoelcon]

Why in the hell would a manufacturer make a 'world phone' and then sell it to a company that disables the 'world' part of the phone?

To charge extra to get the "world" part of the phone working. This IS Verizon your talking about.

Re:Wait for 2010

[DomNF15]

Well yes you are correct in making the European/US GSM band distinction. Not all the phones will work on the US GSM band, but the Tour in particular does...guess it's cheaper to put quad band GSM in those things now.

Thanks Verizon!

[Khan]

Yeah, I decided to move to AT&T after the Early Termination Fee hike and THIS just enforces that I made the right decision. What an utterly boneheaded move on their part.

Re:Why phones have to be decoupled from the networ

[nine-times]

This demonstrates exactly why the phone network provider has to be decoupled from the cell phone vendor. What is the subtext of this? That the consumers are nothing more than serfs for the phone network providers to buy and sell as they please. That's the point. You have NO choice with Verizon. It's not YOUR phone it's THEIR phone.

Right. It seems noteworthy to me when the article said, "we've changed the [Verizon Wireless]-supplied web menu to make Bing the default search engine." This is one of the reasons right there that I don't like Verizon Wireless. Why is there even a Verizon-supplied web menu at all?

I just want it to end...

[plowboylifestyle]

Cellco's are nothing but misery. Overcharging customers, blocking progress, failing to invest in proper infrastructure. It just needs to end, they need to start providing customers with conduits for data, and start competing based on the volume, reliability and price of that conduit. All this other nonsense needs to end. Why on earth are we even buying cell phones from cell phone companies. That's like buying laptops from your ISP. It needs to end. Our culture, our economy, and the rest of human progress cannot wait any longer.

Re:Droid

[plover]

Actually, the iPhone lets you change your search provider in the configuration settings.

Yeah, I can set the check mark next to either Google or Yahoo. Now there's real "Freedom of Choice."

Re:Wait for 2010

[ELCouz]

SIM card is bound to the GSM technology is Verizon don't have.

Re:Wait for 2010

[ELCouz]

***which

Re:Droid

[anethema]

You can also download other browsers in the app store (Though they all pretty much suck).

Re:Droid

[jthill]

Well, that and Bing has been caught suppressing results unfavorable to Microsoft.

What do you think?

Think they'll do that for other commercial vendors?

Think they'll distort searches on political issues they favor or dislike?

I think they will.

Not a week passes....

[Jager Dave]

...that I don't discover another reason NOT to go with Verizon when my current contract is up....

Re:Wait for 2010

[tgetzoya]

I have the Storm as well as the SIM card. In the US GSM/SIM is automatically useless because if the storm can find a CDMA signal it's going for that type first, so Verizon then Sprint. If you want to leave the country and use the GSM portion, you have to call customer service and switch to the World Roaming+Data plan(http://b2b.vzw.com/international/GlobalAccess/plans_coverage.html). As for GP, getting it to work with AT&T is just awesome. Oh, and no UMTS, just GSM (and I'm not sure, but it might support EDGE/GPRS) Still, I like the phone and despite being raped in the ass every month by my bill I still like Verizon as the best carrier....I do miss the old AT&T though.

Re:Wait for 2010

[BitZtream]

I'm not really sure that I buy that. It seems hard to believe that it costs more to spend the few seconds entering an IMEI number than the cost of a card.

Railroads...

[Fished]

It happened all the times with railroads... there were multiple lines built between the same cities. What killed telephone competition was that Bell refused to interoperate with competitors in any market where they were established, and bought competitors in markets where they werent' and wanted to be. So... it's a "natural monopoly", but more for reasons of anti-competitive behavior than because of anything intrinsic to the business.

Droid

[Rip Dick]

Just get a Droid. Search with whatever you want, fucking askjeeves for fuck's sake. Fuck.

So, its a blackberry

[BitZtream]

Its not like browsing on the default browser on the BlackBerry is something that actually happens. Its like pretending that older WinMo users used Internet Explorer (can't speak of winmo6, haven't used it, maybe its different?).

This is a great deal for Verizon and won't effect that many people really. Anyone who cares is using some other browser, not that crap that comes on the BlackBerry.

It did learn

[SmallFurryCreature]

It learned that the US government and its people are weak-willed and ineffective and can be manipulated at will to do their bidding.

What other lesson were they supposed to learn? IE6 still has to be accounted for if you make a website.

Good...

[mathfeel]

that I saw this news today. I lost my old dumb phone yesterday and am going to go shopping for a smart one tomorrow. Verizon is out.

Bing??? What a Joke!!

[kenbo0422]

I spent weeks using Bing, Google and Yahoo search engines to look up everything I could think of (things I would normally be looking up). Bing was a very, very, distant third. Actually, so much so, out of the three, I would have rated it fourth. Making Deals with Microsoft isn't always a good idea. This just proves the point.

Re:wow

[spottedkangaroo]

If it's true that all choice was removed because of a "deal" (bribe) between two giant companies and inflicted on people who are locked in via contract... then no, it's not that reactionary, it's simply not legal under antitrust law.

If you can remove all choice by paying money it's not capitalism, it's something else.

Other reasons...

[Bert64]

This is also likely to hurt RIM if it's only their handsets being affected by this, nodoubt MS are hoping some of those users will switch to windows mobile devices instead.

Re:Wait for 2010

[TheSpoom]

It's part of Verizon's business plan that users can only get phones through them, because they can then tack on that two year contract at all times. They don't want a transferable SIM card.

Re:Droid

[indros13]

It's good enough for a presidential election...

Re:Wait for 2010

[lorenlal]

Actually, in the few experiences I've had trying to use a SIM on a Verizon phone, I've only received error messages. When I've gone overseas, I've declined to take my Verizon phone for that exact reason. The SIM slot is there either for show, to make manufacturing easier, or because you have to buy a card from Verizon to allow access to overseas networks... Which means paying Verizon's international rape fee to use your phone.

I leave the possibility that something has changed. I'm also willing to leave the door open for someone to state that I am wrong and hopefully provide information.

As for you AC - I'm quite willing to bet that you've never tried to put a card in your Storm. I'm quite confident that you have no clue what you're talking about.

Not correct

[hrath]

The summary of the story is not correct. I am a VZW Blackberry Tour user and after seeing the story noticed a new Bing icon had appeared on my phone over night. The browser still has Google as the default section, clicking on the Bing icon asks you to agree to some terms and conditions. As I didn't agree everything is still as before and I can use Google as my favorite search engine.

It's a double-edged blade

[Rich Klein]

My employer blocks Bing but allows Google. I guess I'd be screwed if I had to use a Verizon Blackberry on my employer's network.

The one person who would matter.

[firesyde424]

I wonder what would happen if Pres Obama, who IS a Blackberry user, ended up calling Verizon to complain about the Bing lock in.

Use bing...

[marciot]

...to search for Google.

Re:Droid

[derfla8]

Honestly, does anyone NOT choose Google? If there is a better search engine out there please let me know. Try looking for Microsoft material on Bing. You'd think if anything Microsoft's own search engine would be a good way to find Microsoft material. No dice! Typically Google's first result will be a link directly to a MS site with the content I look for whereas Bing will have a whole bunch of crap with their own sites somewhere further down the list.

Wrong expression

[phorm]

Your analogy is a bit off but it definitely made me laugh. I'm not sure how putting a pork-chop around an ugly person's neck would get them a date (unless it's with an equally ugly redneck), but the one I heard was:
    "She was such an ugly kid we had to hang a porkchop around her next just to get the dog to play with her"

Makes a bit more sense IMHO :-)

Re:Wrong expression

[Alsee]

I'm not sure how putting a pork-chop around an ugly person's neck would get them a date

I found the analogy a bit odd too, but I interpreted it as the person being so ugly that you needed a pork chop to get them a date with a (literal or figurative) dog.

-

Re:Droid

[Myopic]

What do you mean? My Presidential ballot normally has between eight and twelve names on it, from a wide variety of parties, and I can write in any other person I wish to vote for. That is precisely the opposite of being forced to choose from one or two options.

MY two-year deal

[hoggoth]

> The move is part of the five-year search and advertising deal Verizon signed with Microsoft in January for a rumored $500m."

The move is a part of my two-year deal to not buy a Verizon plan.

It's called being polite in mixed company f***wad

[gadlaw]

What is your problem with some people self censoring themselves? It's called self control, it's called being polite, it's called being considerate of others. You're still in that phase of life where you think of only yourself and care nothing for the concerns and cares of others. So your inability to understand why some folks can self censor themselves and still be mad is a congenital defect of yours. For instance, I can self censor myself and not use curse words when there are small children present or nuns or even with cashiers, salespeople and strangers. This is probably not the case with yourself, but then for you nobody else matters but you.

Re:Droid

[david_thornley]

Or download the Bing app. I tend to use the Google search app more often than directly searching in Safari, anyway.

Re:Droid

[jarden_from_cerberus]

It's good enough for a presidential election...

Well really that would be more like choosing between "Yahoo!" and "Also a Yahoo!"

Re:and the material value of the change is $500M

[digitalunity]

That might not be a good thing. Verizon has like 60 million customers, entitling each one to about $8 in damages from the search deal.

Re:Why phones have to be decoupled from the networ

[dangitman]

I think it's time that Congress and the President (who's a blackberry customer) is informed of what exactly verizon thinks of their freedom of choice.

Yeah, because this is a really important matter that deserves government attention. Did you ever stop to think that there are much more important issues for government to deal with than your stupid fucking mobile gadgets?

Re:Droid

[indros13]

You are correct, of course, on the details, but I would say that you're wrong on the principle. You have two meaningful choices on your presidential ballot (e.g. candidates who can win). It's like getting search choices of Yahoo, Google, and then a bunch of other sites like Altavista.

I use AT&T

[sean.peters]

... and although the main knock against them has been poor network coverage, I actually haven't had any problems with that. I think AT&T's real screwup was to allow network coverage problems to go on in New York and the SF Bay area. I mean, come on - if you had to pick a couple places to screw up that would absolutely guarantee the most negative publicity, it would be there. Meanwhile, my coverage out here in the sticks is actually pretty damn good. I get 3-4 bars of 3G coverage even where I work in rural Virginia, which is kind of amazing.

I used to use a Treo on Sprint, and while I liked Sprint's policies (there was none of the nickel-and-diming that Verizon always pulls), their coverage was absolutely horrible. I could barely get a call through anywhere. It wasn't just the phone, either - my wife was on a more basic flip phone with Sprint, and her coverage absolutely sucked too. Maybe things are better now, but I doubt I'll be leaving AT&T anytime soon.

Slow learners

[Patch86]

So in the same week that Microsoft has been forced to implement the infamous "ballot screen" for web browsers after a humiliating judgment on the illegality of forcing a single company-specific product on the user, we get this news story?

Sometimes I think that big corporations just like court cases.

Re:Install the provider neutral Blackberry Firmwar

[Drgnkght]

I own a (non-Verizion) Blackberry. I'd say the problem isn't with the firmware, but rather that Verizion has changed the service books that they push out to the phones. The service books, for those who have never used a blackberry, determine how the phone will function.

T-Mobile, my carrier, pushes out four service books that I loathe: "MySpace virtual preload [BrowserConfig]", "BC_Virtual_Preload_Facebook [BrowserConfig]", "Virtual Preload Handango [BrowserConfig]", "Virtual Preload TeleNav [BroswerConfig]". These all add shortcuts on the Home Screen to download the various softwares. They don't do anything else. If you delete the service book the icon disappears as well, however anytime the services books get refreshed these books are resent as well. (It became less of an annoyance once I realized you could hide the icons.)

So That Explains...

[IonOtter]

...why the map server for Bing has been so flaky tonight?

Everyone has been forced to switch over from maps.google.com to maps.bing.com. Guess they weren't ready for the load.

Re:Droid

[Trogre]

You should have gotten a +5 for that.

Funny or Insightful I'm not sure, but +5 nonetheless.

Re:Droid

[Trogre]

We have to stop that wrong lizard from getting in, after all.

Verizon just lost me. For good. That's all.

[zefrey]

Verizon just lost me. For good.

No bing on my VZW BB's

[misnohmer]

I have two Verizon blackberries and no bing showed up on either. Google is the default search engine in the browser - rebooted both Tuesday when the outage hit.