ContentAltnernageek, TechCrunch and others are reporting, and Biz is confirming, that T-Mobile is restricting/denying access to Twitter.
According to Alternageek, T-Mobile’s customer service department wrote:
T-Mobile would like to bring to your attention that the Terms and Conditions of service, to which you agreed at activation, indicate “… some Services are not available on third-party networks or while roaming. We may impose credit, usage, or other limits to Service, cancel or suspend Service, or block certain types of calls, messages, or sessions (such as international, 900, or 976 calls) at our discretion.” Therefore, T-Mobile is not in violation of any agreement by not providing service to Twitter. T-Mobile regrets any inconvenience, however please note that if you remain under contract and choose to cancel service, you will be responsible for the $200 early termination fee that would be assessed to the account at cancellation.
I’ve been a T-Mobile customer for about 4 years now. Fortunately, that means I’m long out of contract so they won’t get to charge me the $200 early termination fee.
…
If you think the rest of the Internet needs net neutrality laws, that’s nothing compared with the backward-facing worldview of the established mobile carriers. You guys aren’t going to last long at this rate, and when it is all said and done no one is going to look back and longingly pine for the days of a handful of restricted carriers running closed networks.
You know that, right?
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Update 2007-12-16: The Twitter blog is reporting that this is a technical issue, not a policy issue. I think that’s good news.
That doesn’t explain the original response from T-Mobile, of course. Telling, isn’t it, that even their own customer service department jumped to the conclusion that they were intentionally blocking someone?
You know, I don’t even care that much about Twitter in particular. I simply find that Twitter is a great litmus test for what happens when social communication crosses network boundaries. Here we were able to witness some of the potential problems.
And T-Mobile, while we have your attention, can you explain to me in plain honest language why the mobile device I purchased (for full price, outside contract), can not:
- Load ringtones that I made on my computer? I notice that I can buy and download them from your store.
- Load and run arbitrary applications? I notice I can buy and download those from your store as well…
- Sync with my email provider, calendar provider, etc.? I notice that … wait, no, I can’t sync with you, either.
Technically the phone is perfectly capable of doing any of those things. The phone’s OS and runtime supports it, as does the technical infrastructure of your network.
(That was a rhetorical question, of course. I just think it is sad. And I’m frustrated, and I’d like it to change.)
December 15th, 2007 at 9:58 am
So does this mean that T-Mobile is now a founding member of the Closed Handset Alliance?
December 15th, 2007 at 10:18 am
“You guys aren’t going to last long at this rate …”
That’s funny. You know that they’ve been acting this way all along, right?
December 15th, 2007 at 11:14 am
They’ve always acted this way, but previously it was against small groups of people who weren’t able to voice their discontent particularly widely.
Cleverly, T-Mobile have just pissed off the userbase of a great big instant messaging social network, a userbase grown pretty much entirely on word of mouth recommendations, and one where a reasonable proportion of the users also make themselves heard by other means (blogs, et al).
T-Mobile’s move is at best “dumbass” and at worst a tipping point. I think it’s probably somewhere in the middle, but time will tell on that…
December 15th, 2007 at 11:24 am
This is interesting. I’m a Tmo subscriber, and I’ve got Twitter bookmarked on my phone. I just brought up the Twitter page through the phone’s browser. I’ve got an unlocked phone that I got outside Tmo, but it doesn’t seem like that should be relevant.
OTOH, a friend of mine who regularly used Tmo’s data plan to log on while on the road could never connect to Google through Tmo. Tmo support would only say “it’s a known issue.” They never resolved it (at least, not before she switched carriers).
December 15th, 2007 at 11:26 am
How common is the use of third party networks or roaming? It doesn’t seem like this would affect many people. If you use your phone often outside of the phone issuers network, you probably ought to consider switching providers for anyway, to a provider that covers where your happen to physically be.
I suspect that this is not a completely random, irrational rule on T-Mobile’s part: they probably have to contract with other providers and underwrite the costs of certain types of usage.
December 15th, 2007 at 11:28 am
haha, that sucks! good thing I got the iPhone and stuck with AT&T! I don’t care what anyone say’s, I’ve been happy with AT&T service and the EDGE speeds aren’t bad.
December 15th, 2007 at 11:38 am
“This is interesting. I’m a Tmo subscriber, and I’ve got Twitter bookmarked on my phone. I just brought up the Twitter page through the phone’s browser. I’ve got an unlocked phone that I got outside Tmo, but it doesn’t seem like that should be relevant.”
I don’t think T-Mobile is blocking access to the web pages for Twitter, they’re blocking access to the SMS interface.
December 15th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Yes, clearly blocking Twitter is going to usher in the mass revolution that overthrows the oligopolistic wireless carriers and brings in the neutral and open revolution.
Twitter is that that popular / important.
December 15th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I don’t understand. Is this only for customers who have the unlimited messages plan (i.e. my addict sister can send thousands of messages a month and they don’t like it but at least it’s not the 1 or 2 a day from twitter!), or do ALL plans lose access? I can’t see a reason t mobile would want to stop people from paying 10 cents a message to update their real-world status message.
December 15th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
[...] Twitter bei T-Mobile USA YAHOO.Shortcuts.annotationSet=YAHOO.Shortcuts.annotationSet||{};Das ist ja mal wieder eine Topaktion, liebe Telekom - in den USA wird jetzt der Zugriff auf Twitter per SMS über T-Online gesperrt. [...]
December 15th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
i’ve been checking around and everyone i know on tmobile is still able to send messages to twitter with no problems using the 40404 short code. i’m trying to find tmobile users who also receive texts via twitter to see if they’ve noticed any problems. all of the sites you cite are known for accurate reporting, but i still want to check for myself before i go up in arms.
December 15th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Well said.
December 15th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
I am liking the fact that they’ve just blocked the Los Angeles Fire Dept. I’m guessing it’s about eeking out a bit more lucrative SMS revenue. When well they just get over it and stop trying to pretend they are not just a tiny piece of data.
And the irony is this is likely to generate more publicity for Twitter than anything else. Even if people don’t know what it is, negative stories about mobile companies are good news stories.
If you’ve not see ‘The President’s Analyst’, you really should . .
December 15th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Cleverly, T-Mobile have just pissed off the userbase of a great big instant messaging social network.
I think you vastly overestimate how big the Twitter user base is, let alone the % of Twitter users who are also T-Mobile customers.
For what it is worth, I have T-Mobile and have no problem what so ever sending and receiving messages from Twitter.
December 15th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
I use T-Mobile in the US. After hearing of this problem, I added my phone to Twitter. I can send messages to 40404, and I can get updates that way. And even @replies show up in a timely manner.
December 16th, 2007 at 7:45 am
[...] of elaborating any further, I’ll let DeWitt Clinton bring it home for me: If you think the rest of Internet needs net neutrality laws, that’s nothing [...]
December 17th, 2007 at 3:55 am
[...] Hoffman 评说 “我一直都在提醒你” DeWitt Clinton, Unto.Net December 16, 2007 [原文链接] [Tags: none] [...]