What Happens To Customers Whose Providers Disappear?

from the no-more-service-for-you dept

Last week, VoIP provider SunRocket pulled the plug, and it looks like it will be joined on Tuesday by mobile virtual operator Amp'd. But in addition to out of work employees and unpaid creditors, there's another group of affected people here that seem to have gotten lost in the shuffle: these companies' customers. As the comments to one of our posts about SunRocket attests, the company's customers were left hanging in the wind, with no real information about what would happen to their service, or their phone numbers. Amp'd users got a helpful text message ("AMPD MSG: Your svc may be disconnected on 7.24 @ 12:01am. Go to http://www.ampd.com or contact the location where you activated your service for further info.") and a hastily written FAQ. It's not like these companies will really care about their ex-customers, and acting in the name of morality, or even just being decent, won't pay their bills. But the bigger issue here is what this means for other upstart companies, particularly in entrenched industries like telecom. For all their faults and downsides compared to VoIP providers, it's unlikely that companies like AT&T or Verizon will go out of business and leave their customers in the lurch -- and that could make it harder for newer, smaller companies to pull in users.

Filed Under: mobile, telecom, voip, wireless
Companies: amp'd, at&t, sunrocket, verizon

Verizon Wireless Again Accused Of Crippling Handset Features

from the same-old-story dept

An anonymous reader has submitted a story about Verizon Wireless apparently crippling the GPS functionality on the BlackBerry 8830 handsets it sells, after advertising the feature as one of the device's selling points. This sounds a lot like the situation Verizon found itself in a few years ago, when a bunch of pissed-off customers filed a class-action lawsuit against the operator (which it ended up settling) after it advertised the Bluetooth functionality of a Motorola handset, then crippled it so it would only support certain functions. The legal or liability ramifications of what Verizon's done here aren't clear, but judging by forum posts, there's a number of annoyed customers out there. Of course, Verizon's done this sort of thing before, whether it's continuing to cripple Bluetooth, keeping its customers in a walled garden so they can only access data services that make Verizon money, or by making misleading claims about the "unlimited" aspects of some of its services. While Verizon's strategy seems to result in plenty of unhappy customers, it's unlikely to change until a good number of them start voting with their wallets and fleeing to other operators. After all, the bad publicity and occasional class-action suit doesn't seem to be having much effect.

Filed Under: gps, mobile, wireless
Companies: rim, verizon