I am no longer a T-Mobile user. I had a Dash until I switched to the iPhone a little while back. But according to some reports, including Allen Stern over at CenterNetworks, T-Mobile has blocked their users from sending Twitter messages, I believe from the SMS route. And customers are non too happy about it. Evidence the chain here on a T-Mobile customer service site.
I found it very interesting some of the comments left there. One in particular was quite ironic:
How can a T-Mobile sign on with Google’s open Android platform and block third party services? Obviously they don’t support open use so my excitement level for Android on T-Mobile has considerably diminished.
How true. Maybe this is all a big misunderstanding, I cannot be sure or speculate. But I do wonder sometimes who sits around and thinks this up. I cant believe for a minute they would consider this as a positive step.
When I was a T-Mobile customer, I was struck by how good their service was. Always spoke to a courteous service rep, which is always better than a computer generated voice telling me to press 1,2 or 3 …. Nonetheless I am struck by the shortsightedness of these decisions. T-Mobile is the small kid on the block in the US. Their network coverage is nowhere near the big 2 of Verizon and AT&T and this is certainly no way to stay in the fight. In order to compete when you are the small guy, you have to make people fight for you, not against you. Decisions like these are counterproductive and will not help their cause.
I mean look, we are in a time when certain forces, to include Google’s Android platform are “forcing” the giants like Verizon and AT&T to open up their networks. Well okay, define open …. but in any case, they see the writing on the wall and are responding in such a way to position themselves better. I think T-Mobile is going to be quite surprised by the backlash they will get from this. They obviously have misjudged the importance of the path to openness and the power of the 140 character burst.
