File Complaint with FTC against Verizon for locking GPS on Omina (& other phones)

[iconoclast]

First of all Verizon are not in the right. They subsidized the phone for their benefit not ours so that argument does not hold.

Secondly, even if they do decide to "unlock" the GPS down the road depending on when they do it (christmas comes to mind) it may be a bit too late as new phones will start hitting the market and guess what, we will be going down this road once more cursing Verizon for blocking GPS on the new phones. This is the time to take a stand and show our dissatisfaction through the only means they will understand. Filing the complaint with FTC literally takes 5 minutes and we have noting to lose except 5 minutes!

https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

[gutrrob]

If you want to make a stand go to another carrier that will have them think twice if enough people leave their service

[tk4223]

Just my two cents...

I don't understand why people are willing to go through all of this trouble, is it just to complain? For a company that has roughly 86 million customer, they arnt going to flinch if even a million of them file a complaint, especially if complaint is as petty as charging for a service that is offered, although it must be purchased, the box advertises GPS and GPS is available. When it comes down to it, the foundation of this complaint is just a pile of sand. The solution is out there, thanks to hard work of the developers. Why not spend the five minutes it would take to file a complaint and flash a GPS-enabled ROM to your phone? It takes just as much effort and you get an instant result. Then you can make a useful post and give some much needed feedback.

If just half of the effort wasted on complaining was put toward assisting all the developers here, if only to give feedback, then the developer's community will prosper.

Sorry if I offended anyone with my above statement, trying to rally others behind a petty complaint plucks a nerve. As I first stated, it's only my two cents.

[Skyline987]

Originally Posted by iconoclast

First of all Verizon are not in the right. They subsidized the phone for their benefit not ours so that argument does not hold.

So you're willing to pay $500 for an Omnia? If that's not the case then it definitely was for your benefit! I'm not trying to start anything and if your willing to take the 5 minutes to do it then more power to you but at this point its a wasted effort.

[Adrynalyne]

Originally Posted by gutrrob

If you want to make a stand go to another carrier that will have them think twice if enough people leave their service

Thats it right there. Hit them in the pocket books.

[Adrynalyne]

Originally Posted by iconoclast

First of all Verizon are not in the right. They subsidized the phone for their benefit not ours so that argument does not hold.

You do know carriers do not make money off the devices, right?

I'm guessing you don't know that.

[phullofphil]

If you use your gps alot it might not even be that bad of a deal at ten dollars a month considering the amount of data needed to reproduce the map every time you move. its really acurate. I think it should be unlocked also and mine is but for one thing that kind of gps survice is probley going to cost you money one way or another. YOu really do not know why its not released yet. My battery drains in about two hours with gps now. It did not with navagater. Kinda pointless for hiking any way without batery backups. To be honest i really could care less. I knew when i bought it that it was locked and am very happy right now i got mine unlocked. YOu should start a patition thanking everybody that made it possible to get through unlocking the phone and getting you free goodies hacks tips tricks and all aroun help when you have a problem. I do want a more stable base rom to go off of but Its always going to be how much money can a company mak in profets that will drive them. You cant blame verizon its ther jobs. I depend on my phone and actulally so ffar think verizon is a pretty good company.
Look at our econimy no one is spending money. People are loosing ther jobs. Suffering is happing in your own back yard. And a patition to maybe rais my phone bill in an inderect way. no thanks. They will get there money one way or another. This issue is such a wast of energy. Everyone has the right to want to get paid for what they do. Nothing in life is free.

[tinycandi]

It's GPS-capable. Anyone who is familiar with Verizon knows that you have to subscribe to the service to use it. Kinda like messaging...the phones are capable of SMS and MMS but you have to pay to use the service. This is not a stand-alone GPS product. It's a phone...serviced through Verizon.

I agree with what has already been said...filing a complaint isn't going to do much good. If you don't like the way they service their phones/customers then you go elsewhere. Losing massive amounts of dedicated customers is going to have more effect than a complaint about something which will change nothing.

You can either change your phone so it has the capabilities you want it to have, you can pay for the service, or you can change your provider. These are your options. And of course...you can complain. But that's about like cutting the thumb of your hand and expecting the other four fingers to care.

[jville95]

Originally Posted by tinycandi

And of course...you can complain. But that's about like cutting the thumb of your hand and expecting the other four fingers to care.

[LittleBreezes]

Whoa ... sueing Verizon for restraint of trade because their locked GPS prevents other software

vendors from using the GPS service? Well, honestly I hope you have more cash to spend on legal

bills then Verizon spends on its lawyers. However with that said I will let you in on a secret

that has the cell industry on its heels. It is section 255 of the FCC code. Esentially, if you

want VZ to unlock the GPS you will need to find a blind VZ customer that is willing to put their

name on a complaint against VZ, probably not as hard to find as you may think. In a nutshell,

section 255 of the FCC code and section 504 of the Federal rehabilitation act of 1973 both

require handsets sold through U.S. carriers to be accessible to the disabled (specifically the

blind in this case). Stay with me on this one. Both Samsung and HTC Windows Mobile handsets are

normally accessible through use of text to speach software so that itself is not an issue.

However the crinkle is that the VZ Nav/TeleNav software does not work with the screen readers

(text to speach) software that blind folks use. That is not a problem on handsets with unlocked

GPS since blind folks merely install speach compatible GPS software (like Mobile Geo from

www.codefactory.es) and away they go enjoying GPS on their handsets. Now the big problem is

that a locked GPS prevents this and precludes a blind person from utilizing all the features

that were advertised for their handsets and that is a violation of the above acts. A complaint

on this basis would force Verizon to do one of two things: either completely rewrite the VZ Nav

software to make it screen reader compatible or simply unlock the GPS to allow the installation

of screen reader friendly GPS software. Which one do you think they would do? If any of you are

laughing at this possibbility, you can do some research and find out that every U.S. carrier has

spent 7 and 8 figures to settle complaints in this line of reasoning. Ever wonder why Microsoft

now includes Voice Command standard on all U.S. installs of Windows Mobile? Yep, to satisfy

accessibility requirements. Now to bring this specifically down to Verizon, ever wonder why VZ

reintroduced the Moto Q with the Talks screen reader installed .. yep you guessed it. Also ever

wonder why VZ offered its cheaper LG phones (and some other brands too) with speach output? Yep

you guessed it too. Still not convinced? Then Google the lawsuit brought by Dr. Day against

Verizon that really started that ball rolling.
hth
Frank