A little while ago I found myself sitting in the food court at Montclair (California) Plaza, idly reading tweets, when I ran across two tweets from @smojo.
nice job @clintus you twittered so much that tmob blocked twitter for everyone.
Seriously though that blows that tmobile is doing that. I hope all twitter tmobile people are calling up and complaining
And it looks like they are. Here's a letter that bblboy54 sent to T-Mobile yesterday:
Hello,
I am a very loyal T-Mobile customer and also a very loyal user of the Twitter service (http://www.twitter.com). For the last couple of days I have been unable to send messages to the twitter service (short code: 40404). I figured this was related to the SMS issues T-Mobile was having in the Washington D.C. area so I didnt think much of it... until tonight. I spoke with various people in T-Mobile's customer service and I was outraged when I finally got a response that made sense. From what I was told by the rep that I spoke with, T-Mobile does not support third party message services and sometimes I may be able to use them because of a bug in your system. I was then told that the t-mobile system caught up with the bug and that I shouldnt expect to be able to use the Twitter service any longer from T-Mobile. The rep I spoke with was EXTREMELY helpful and, if nothing else, she should be recognized on her outstanding customer service. For your reference, her ID is 3*****3. She did open a Voice Form with the ID of 0623630.
What is the most troubling about this entire situation is that I feel morally violated by T-Mobile and I feel that T-Mobile is going against Net Neutrality which I believe is essential to our electronic communications. I subscribe to an unlimited text messaging service and that product that I subscribe to does not carve out exceptions to certain destinations. What T-Mobile is telling me in relation to SMS is the same thing as if I was told that I could no longer call my grandmother because her phone number is on AT&T Wireless. This type of behavior is the exact opposite of why I chose to move my service to T-Mobile and, I must say, I have been extremely pleased with the service and the company... until this. Unfortunately, this issue is enough for me to decide to leave T-Mobile. It's not even the loss of being able to use Twitter that concerns me but the fact that T-Mobile is being deliberately misleading in their marketing and is telling me what I can and can't do with a service that I pay for. T-Mobile doesnt have the best coverage in the area that I live in but I am with T-Mobile because I always believed them to be a company with good morals. Finding out that what I believed about T-Mobile is false simply gives me no reason to stay with T-Mobile when I can have the same treatment from Verizon except that with them I get better coverage in the area I live.
I hope that this issue can be resolved without me having to leave T-Mobile but I am prepared to do that if I am not given a reason to believe that T-Mobile is still the great company that I once new.
Thank you very much,
R.M.
Mashable links to a post on BibleBoy's blog which includes a response from T-Mobile:
From: ExecutiveResponse@T-Mobile.com
Subject: T-Mobile and Twitter
Date: December 14, 2007 4:49:07 PM EST
To: -----@bibleboy.org
Return-Path:
Envelope-To: -----@bibleboy.org
Delivery-Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:49:27 -0500
Received: from mail by * with spam-scanned (Exim 4.54) id 1J3IP9-00065R-1n for -----@bibleboy.org; Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:49:27 -0500
Received: from mail1.t-mobile.com ([206.29.162.142] helo=nxprdapirn02.t-mobile.com) by * with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.54) id 1J3IP8-00065O-PF for bob@bibleboy.org; Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:49:11 -0500
Received: from ([10.1.1.66]) by nxprdapirn02.t-mobile.com with ESMTP id 5502347.80485432; Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:49:07 -0800
Received: from NXPRDVSMBX02.t-mobile.com ([10.133.32.33]) by waprdmsims02.t-mobile.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.1830); Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:49:07 -0800
Dear Mr. Mertz:
My name is Marianne Maestas and I am with the Executive Customer Relations department of T-Mobile. I am contacting you on behalf of Mr. Robert Dotson in regards to the email that you sent him yesterday evening.
In your email, you express concerns, as you are not able to use your service for Twitter. As you have been advised, Twitter is not an authorized third-party service provider, and therefore you are not able to utilize service from this provide any longer. You indicate your feeling that this is a violation of the Net Neutrality.
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.
Should you have any further questions, please feel free to contact Customer Care at 800-937-8997. Thank you,
Marianne Maestas,
Executive Customer Relations Specialist,
Office of the President
In a comment, Michael noted a difference between SMS codes and phone numbers:
You guys are barking up the wrong tree with the "net neutrality" and "like blocking a phone number" arguments. Shortcodes aren't phone numbers. They're value-added services that don't support voice communications, so they're not regulated by the FCC, or included in standards like E.164 that ensure interoperability of voice numbers.
It's always been up to phone companies to decide which shortcodes they support. Says so right on the Common Short Code Administration website.
Specifically, Michael links to the "Common Short Code Policies and Procedures." Section 2 states:
2. Carrier Agreement Policy
REGISTERING A CSC IN NO WAY GUARANTEES YOU THE RIGHT TO SEND OR RECEIVE COMMUNICATIONS USING YOUR CSC OR THE RIGHT TO USE THE CSC IN ANY OTHER MANNER. IN ORDER TO ACTIVATE YOUR CSC, YOU MUST OBTAIN APPROVAL FROM EACH INDIVIDUAL PARTICIPATING CARRIER IN WHICH YOU WOULD LIKE TO TRANSMIT CONTENT. THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF ALL SUCH ARRANGEMENTS WITH INDIVIDUAL PARTICIPATING CARRIERS ARE AT THE SOLE DISCRETION OF THAT PARTICIPATING CARRIER AND WILL NOT IN ANY WAY INVOLVE THE REGISTRY OR THE CSCA.
So, legally, T-Mobile is perfectly within their rights to alienate their customers. And I was perfectly within my rights to leave this message on the T-Mobile website after a search for information on "Twitter" came up empty:
Was trying to find your side of the story regarding your Twitter blocking policy. However, it seems that you are not explicitly disclosing this in your communications with your customers and potential customers.
Incidentally, searches on "SMS" and "SMS code" didn't turn up anything either. T-Mobile pretends that SMS codes do not exist; it provides instructions for sending text messages to a phone number or to an e-mail address, but remains silent on SMS codes.
In just a second, I'll write about an SMS blocking plan that backfired (see next post).
[15 DECEMBER 9:40 PST - I DIDN'T JUST WRITE THE TWO POSTS ON THIS TOPIC. ALSO SEE POSTS THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX, AND SEVEN. SO FAR.]
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2 comments:
It's bull shit and I'm pissed. Something like this without a formal response of why THIS code was blocked is almost enough to make me switch. I love T-Mobile and have never had any issues with them. I've resisted the iPhone craze because of my loyalty to T-Mobile. But this fires me up!
@oemporer, I cancelled the unlimited SMS plan with T-Mobile. Might as well deny them $50 of revenue until my freedom date of 23 May 2008. I called them twice. T-Mobile used to be good -- light on wait time for customer service, friendly. Now they are Borg, like everyone else.
@philiphodgen
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