Bell may be messing with the GPS on Blackberry phones
If rumors are true, then it looks like Bell in Canada is taking a page from the playbook of Verizon Wireless by crippling the GPS on select Blackberrys. Over the next few weeks, Bell may be increasing the GPS lock time (2-10 minutes) and resolution (1-2.5KM) of Third Party applications while maintaining the speed (10-15s) and accuracy (10-25m) of their own GPS Nav program. These changes are presumably meant to force lure customers into using Bell’s crappy superior GPS Nav program instead of the built-in Blackberry Maps or the free Google Maps. You knew this was coming… the GPS Nav service will cost $10/month or $3.50/day in addition to the $$ for a data plan. The phones to be affected will include the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition, BlackBerry 8130 Pearl, and BlackBerry 8330 Curve. Any Bell customers with Blackberrys out there care to comment?
Tags: 8130, 8330, 8830, Bell, BlackBerry, Curve, GPS, GPS Nav, pearl
at least bell comes out at tells you that they are scamming you! telus wont admit it but anything else besides telus’ gps application cannot be depended on to work
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who does bell think they are; rogers?
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Are u serious?
This the dumbest sh*t ever. I hope its not true
I can live without my google maps. Bbs & gps nav suck.
Has telus been doing this for a while?
Damn u bell, I thought u were getting better since the teachers bought you, but I guess wen did we ever benefitted from those teachers.
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lets all just move to europe! life (3G) is so much better there.
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It was all the people that fled to Canada after Bush got elected that suddenly became CEO’s. They all must have been Red Sox fans too. That is the only breed of person who can be that much of an asshole to pull a stunt like that. Or a Mets fan with the balls to live in Manhattan.
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east coast gheto reash no matter how yo slice it
an yes ths beni fit is lame GO GSM if an cahrge less if you want more customers bell disabilaty thinks thay are robbers No doubt
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Galvatron, are you serious?
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Why do the wireless providers keep doing this crap? First SMS double in price if you don’t have a plan, data capping, crippling phone functionality. Its messed up. Its high time for a corporate bitch slap.
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this has already been happening with my telus 8330
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What is most sad in this is that RIM doesn’t have the balls to stand up to the carriers and tell them to stop crippling the hardware.
Listen, if VZNav or BellNav or whatever were such excellent apps, I would be willing to pay extra. But they are both crap. And they are nowhere CLOSE to end all of GPS apps on a phone (though VZW thinks it does everything a customer could want). Give us a product worth paying for and we would pay. VZW can’t even keep the BB version updated in sync with their BREW version, and the corp bobbleheads don’t even know it!
What is most insidious with this Bell action is that even if you DO pay the extra your current apps that work great will no longer. And Bell seems to not care. This seems clearly a contract breach by them, but with Telus and Rogers no better where would you go?
See, they all know they have us over a barrel, and if RIM or the courts (the VZW GPS class action lawsuit) won’t intervene all the benefits of LBS are locked up with the carrier. Hey RIM, can you hear the G1 breathing down your neck yet? Be an advocate for your end users or we WILL be leaving in droves!
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Telus is probably doing the same but it isn’t public. My lock with my Nokia N95 GPS is much faster than my boyfriend’s about 20-30s. Telus does also have their own navigation system, but it won’t even run/launch properly… so what’s the point.
The teachers deal isn’t completed. Bell Mobility is weird in the way that it’s a bit of a separate entity from Sympatico, Phone Wireline, and Satellite TV. Wouldn’t be surprise if Virgin bought Bell Mobility out one day — as Virgin Mobile runs off Bell’s networks. Virgin just bought a Radio station in Toronto. They are in a buying spree mode currently.
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cirgin runs off bell disabilty WOW over here the run on sprint. so Bell Disabilty = SRINT? WTF?!
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^ Yes, Bell sucks _that_ hard. Although, they’re financially viable.
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Sigh, I just bought a Blackberry going to return it now. Probably going to cancel bell now and switch to rogers.
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Just found this on the InterWebs, it’s Bell official stance on this:
Howard Forums Bell thread about this
Read more about this here as well http://tech.2fatdads.com/2008/09/bell-is-now-crippling-gps-on-blackberry.html
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The Bell and Sprint is nothing new. Both are CDMA, and if you look into the Teachers deal a little more you will find out there is also a financial link as well.
As for Virgin buying Bell, forget about it. The whole Virgin deal is just a step until the 4th gen licenses are doled out. If you look at Virgin everywhere else in the world, they are GSM. So once the LTE movement has picked up and the technology is rolled out they will converge there business and Virgin Canada users will finally be able to use their phones in Europe.
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it’s true, i updated my 8130 on bell to ver 4.5 and my accuracy went from 10 meters in seconds to 1500 meters
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Well All FYI Bell has been running gps nav since 2007 with the same charges so nothing new. If you are just realizing it now you are definatly in the dark.
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10 dollars a month in 2 years…might sawell buy a real GPS system.
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