BlackBerry 8830 GPS disabling- Verizon responds
Earlier this month I posted about the RIM BlackBerry 8830 that I purchased from Verizon only to discover that the integrated GPS had been disabled by the carrier. There is much lamenting and angry buzz from Verizon customers who were also "taken" by this decision to disable this rather cool feature. I received a response from Patrick Kimball of Verizon explaining the situation with the 8830:
There are a couple of points that I’d like like to make in regard to this issue.
GPS is not disabled on the 8830. It can still be used for E-911 location so that emergency services personnel can locate the caller when they call 911. What is restricted is the ability of unapproved 3rd party applications to utilize the GPS functionality. It’s less a matter of our blocking 3rd party applications from being used on our devices and more a case of our having a rigorous process for ensuring that any 3rd party application that is used on the devices that we sell has been thoroughly tested to ensure that it meets our standards. This process ensures that the applications work properly on our network and devices, that our technical support staff are prepared to support them and prevents things like viruses from getting onto our network. Location Based Services such as VZ Navigator are not available on the 8830 yet but we do plan to implement them in the future.
I realize that this is frustrating for users, especially the more technically savvy, that would like to download applications to their handsets but the process that we have in place is designed to provide the best possible experience for our customers in terms of reliability and supportability and also to ensure that the applications pose no risk to the device or to our network.
Hope that helps clarify things….
I will share my response here with you:
Thanks for clarifying Verizon’s position, Patrick. The problem with that reasoning stems from the fact that RIM has a Maps application pre-installed on the 8830 which is designed to be used with the integrated GPS. That functionality has been disabled by Verizon. The GPS if enabled could also be used with Google Maps, an online application that is popular world-wide and would surely meet any standards that Verizon might prescribe to. I appreciate your response but in light of the fact that both Sprint and AT&T find the integrated GPS to pose no threat to their networks it is even more difficult to understand Verizon’s position with this.
So it definitely appears that Verizon will be offering the VZ Navigator service in the future for use with the GPS on the 8830. I would like to thank Patrick for responding about this delicate situation and further state that I’ve met him and he is a really nice guy so don’t shoot the messenger.
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Earth to Verizon …. BS
Enabling the integrated GPS has nothing to do with phone functionality of the device and has nothing to do with the Verizon network. Next Verizon will be telling me that I cannot install 3rd party apps like TomTom or Pocket Informant, etc.
Given his response, it sounds like another VZ attempt to force users into their “pay for play” philosophy. VZ Navigator capability doesn’t necessarily mean a fully unlocked GPS that can be used by any software app on the device. His wording sounds suspiciously like they might restrict the GPS chip functionality use to VZ Navigator only (a fee based service, of course).
Like the V710 lawsuit, the 6700 simultaneous WiFi/Phone cripple, BT DUN cripple on the 700w, etc, etc. Verizon can say what they want to, but their history shows a suspicious pattern of behavior. When these restrictions easily benefit VZ and then, only after much criticism are restored, you can’t help but come to the above conclusion. Let’s also keep in mind here that Verizon tends to delay new handsets longer than other carriers while they do “extensive testing”. With this extra time, why doesn’t this extra testing cover those features you disable initially but then add back later?
I switched to Verizon from AT&T several years ago, but this kind of thing bothers me. Between that and the glacial pace at which they release new handsets, it takes a lot away from the benefit of bettwer netwrok coverage. Today in fact, I heard a radio spot for VZ trhat seemed to directly target the iPhone without using the name. It was something along the lines of “…a slick device is nothing without a quality network behind it..”. While that’s true, you could make an argument that a quality network is nothing when you can only use it with crippled devices.
Just my $0.02
Jeff
Ditto Darren’s comment.
This is a case of disabling the feature of the phone so that you can charge a monthly fee for using GPS, which Verizon has nothing to do with providing (other than breaking and then selling the devices built by RIM).
Verizon’s customer service and attitude have taken such a steep nose dive over the past decade that even the much maligned Sprint is starting to seem preferable. I used to be a committed Verizon user, to the point of evangelizing their solutions to my friends and colleagues. Unfortunately, they no longer deserve such loyalty – after years of disabling Bluetooth and other useful features on their phones, the latest example being GPS, and also recently capping the so-called “Unlimited” data plans at levels that can be exceeded by ordinary web use, I could scarcely think worse of them.
I used to have a Verizon 1xRTT data card, and recently got new 3G data service, but I chose AT&T HSDPA rather than Verizon EV-DO, and my next phone will be on AT&T as well, switching away from Verizon. Others are making the same decisions in increasing numbers – for people who want to be able to use the full feature set of their phones without paying extra fees for functionality that costs Verizon nothing, Verizon does not want you as a customer. Funny, since many of the people who would use the disabled features are exactly the high-margin high-dollar users you’d think they would want to retain, but fine, I’ll take the $300/mo I spend on mobile connectivity elsewhere.
I genuinely hate reading things like this because it gets me so annoyed. I don’t begrudge Verizon their profit motivation. Is is, after all, a business… it’s their business, their network and they have every right to do what they want. I say this because I have the right to leave. If I have a contract, well then, I agreed to it and that’s my problem.
But what I hate; what I absolutely despise, is when I get lied to. For me, that response from Verizon is an absolute lie. If they had said, “we’re waiting to deploy our Location Based Service offerings and we will enable the internal GPS at that time” and left it at that, I would be fine. But this nonsense of security? Give me a break.
I would genuinely have no problem calling the person a liar and leaving it at that. As the saying goes “don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining”.
I say that with 100% seriousness and my cellular corporate reps know it too. I run the wireless shop for my company and we have well over 3500 lines in use with better than 80% of them on the Verizon network. Their network is great, the customer service is very good (in my experience) and the business that Verizon has with us is because I chose them instead of AT&T. But they know that if they ever threw a line of BS line like that at me, I’d literally move 10% of my business off of them the next morning to remind them. That’s one of the luxuries of the corporate world in not having to say you’re sorry when you’re the customer.
This Patrick Kimball is probably a standard customer service representative, so I don’t expect that much from them, but man, comments like that really do get under my skin.
That response is so lame. Providing feedback to customer is a generally good thing unless… all you have to say is BS. Verizon is pathetic.
Basically, Verizon’s “quality control” measures for any new 3rd part app feature this one test … “does verizon get to make some money off of this app?”
If no, then suddenly the app in question needs further “testing”
Serious!
“any 3rd party application that is used on the devices that we sell has been thoroughly tested to ensure that it meets our standards.”
Did they validate Google Local and Opera?
A really good commentary on the incumbent carriers vs. innovation war in mobile devices, with particular respect to upcoming spectrum auctions in the US, is available from CSPAN’s The Communicator’s series. On June 20, 2007 they interviewed Almo Sarva the Wireless Founders Coalition for Innovation.” He attacks this lame “it will bring the network down” argument directly, saying how carriers have used it from the 1950s, to block answering machines then, GPS and other services now. You can find the half hour interview as a podcast in iTunes or use RealPlayer to stream it from CSPAN here:
http://tinyurl.com/2kyogr
they told me it was a security problem
what a load of #*#(*&
I too find this extremely frustrating. Granted, I have GPS mapping in my car, but having previously used a BB7100i from Nextel that DOES have enabled GPS, I find I really miss it on my 8830. Adding to the frustration, the sales person in the store told me it does not even HAVE GPS (which I know to be not true) and the BB Maps application that was on the store sample “must have been installed by a customer, it won’t be on your phone”. Well, guess what, they hand my my new phone and RIGHT THERE ON THE SCREEN is BB Maps! Aargh! Buy a 7130 or 8830 from Sprint, and GPS is enabled and BB Maps works awesome. Buy the same device from Verizon (either one), and it’s disabled.
This “security” BS is just that, BS. They say BB Maps is a “3rd party” app, when it comes from RIM and is included on every 8830 that Verizon sells? What???
I too would be very interested in pursuing some action to “encourage” Verizon to remove their disabling of the capability. I am upgrading to the new device software 4.2.2.148 that just came out from Verizon last week, and I see that one of the changes is that the SIM capability can now be unlocked to allow non-Verizon SIMs to be used overseas. I am quit sure this change in policy was a result of so many complaints and lost customers.
Perhaps if there’s a groundswell of user protest (ala the campaign to send bags of nuts to CBS in an effort to save the Jericho TV series, which WORKED! http://www.nutsonline.com/jericho), Verizon can be convinced to do what’s right.