Jonathan Zdziarski wrote an excellent article on the Motorola v710 and the features that Verizon Wireless deleted before putting it on sale. Zdziarski, who writes for Pen Computing Magazine as well as his own site, says that the key features that have been deleted are Bluetooth profiles:
- OBEX (Object Exchange),
- OPP (Object Push Profile), and
- SPP (Serial Port Profile).
These are profiles that are commonly supported by Bluetooth PC adapters, such as the Belkin F8T003 that I talked about on Operation Gadget back in May 2004. If a phone like the Motrola V710 lacks these features, its PC connectivity is pretty much crippled.
Why would Verizon cripple the V710’s PC connectivity? Zdziarski interviewed Brenda Raney a spokesperson for Verizon Wireless. When asked why these Bluetooth profiles were deleted, Raney reportedly said, “Verizon does business unlike any other carrier, and we make no apologies for that. … [Those features] don’t work with our business model. Every customer is certainly entitled to their own feelings.”
Zdziarski also interviewed Monica Rohleder, a Public Relations person for Motorola who confirmed the condition of the V710: “The phone does support Bluetooth file transfer right now, but it is up to the carrier to decide whether it is something they will offer to their customers or not.” [ Note: Verizon is not offering Bluetooth file transfer, no matter how you interpret Rohleder’s statement. ]
I think I’ve been consistant in saying that mobile carriers should not be entitled to delete features from handsets in this manner. It’s a joke for a carrier like Verizon Wireless to structure the delivery of phones to customers as sales, yet arbitrarily restrict PC connectivity features so that all but the most technically savvy users will end up using features of the carrier’s mobile phone network at additional cost.
Anti-customer decisions like this are making me think twice abour recommending other Verizon Wireless services, such as Wireless Internet BroadbandAccess. If Verizon would stoop so low as to cripple Bluetooth file transfer on some of its most advanced phones, what would stop them from blocking certain Internet ports that its customers need for business tasks?