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The Motorola v710: Verizon's New Crippled Phone Jonathan A. Zdziarski
[ v710 Info Page | Seem Hacking | SMIL GW ] [This is a copy of my article published in Pen Computing Magazine : Original Copy ] NEW: Check out this draft of a bill we're trying to get introduced into congress. Manufacture an amazing piece of technology and then cripple all of the good features so you can profit. This is how many v710 users describe their new Bluetooth-enabled phone from Verizon. The v710 appeared to be a truly amazing product from the manufacturer's initial feature list - Bluetooth support, Megapixel Camera, POP3 email, and Instant Messenger. That is, before Verizon decided to disable several of its features for what many believe (and what Verizon doesn't deny) was an effort to drive up revenue. If all you plan on doing is talking on the phone, you won't have any problems - the phone functions with all Verizon-approved hands-free devices. Then again, who would pay the hefty $519 list price for a phone if they just wanted to talk on it? After buying the new v710, many consumers quickly discovered they were unable to perform several basic functions which other similarly equipped phones, from other carriers, were capable of doing. Simple functions, such as sending a phone book record to another phone or a picture to a laptop computer, exist only in some locked area of the v710 noone can access. This is because some critical Bluetooth profiles have been deactivated on the handset; primarily OBEX (Object Exchange) , OPP (Object Push Profile), and SPP (Serial Port Profile). These services are responsible for transferring photos and phone numbers or performing synchronization with a PC wirelessly. Lack of these feature has also caused many vehicles with Bluetooth support (such as the Prius, Acura TL, and BMW) to malfunction. The only sure-fire way to transfer anything to or from the phone, in fact, is to shell out $60 for a TransFlash memory card - and new versions of Verizon firmware are being leaked out showing this feature has already been crippled in future releases. Looking around for the POP3 email client or instant messenger? It was advertised as a capability by the manufacturer, but you won't find it either, because Verizon had those features switched off as well. The irony is that Motorola, who doesn't sell these handsets directly to the public, has done a significant amount of advertising on their own for a handset that, thanks to the carrier, will never exist in its advertised state. I decided to call up Verizon and get to the bottom of the matter, and engaged in a discussion with Verizon's Corporate Handset, Product Distribution, and Marketing honcho, Brenda Raney, asking targetted questions about many of these features and why they were not on the phone as expected. Apart from the usual "we never advertised these features" spiel, I was very shocked to see that Verizon was so up-front and open about their hostile attitude regarding consumers. Q. Many people feel that Verizon has specifically disabled these features to force them to use your Get-it-Now and PIX Place service. A. And your point is? Q. Well, these features are available in phones from many other carriers, and people feel cheated. A. 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. Q. Do you foresee that OBEX/OPP will be enabled anytime in the near future? A. No. Q. The average joe can go out and fork over $60 for a TransFlash card, which will allow them to transfer pictures, MP3s, whatever...and at no profit to Verizon...so why not just enable these features on the phone and give the customers a break? A. That's where the security issue comes in. What Security Issue? I had heard this story from Verizon, which was that they were investigating security issues with the phone, but this appeared only to be an afterthought in comparison with Verizon's profitability needs. The story didn't appear to hold water, and I got the feeling she understood that. Bluetooth has some basic front-line security designed to prevent someone from arbitrarily transferring files to/from the phone without performing a "bonding" ritual. On top of this, the v710 sports a "stealth mode" where it will remain invisible from discovery unless the owner specifically makes it visible (at 60-second intervals) so there's little chance a stranger will even know it's there let alone have the MAC address. If you're still concerned about Bluejacking, the Bluetooth radio can be shut off entirely with a couple of button presses, which is what most users do anyway to conserve power. If you want Fort Knox, you got it...and even if someone did Bluejack you, they'd have to be within smacking distance. The real security issue appears to be what Verizon allegedly considers a "revenue leak" in providing handsets with such features. Lately, however, Raney has been telling a slightly different story - that mysterious contracts require Verizon to protect BREW games and applications, but this smells funny too. For one, every BREW application is digitally signed on the handset's electronic serial number, making it impossible to run one BREW app on another phone even if you did copy it. In fact, one consistent gripe from Verizon customers is that they have to purchase the same game over and over again whenever they swap out a damaged handset or upgrade. Even more awkward about this, however, is that enabling Bluetooth features such as OBEX and OPP don't normally require providing access to every file on the phone - in fact, uncrippled handsets sold by other carriers (as well as nearly any other piece of Bluetooth-enabled equipment) only allow access to a very small subset of directories on the handset for performing specific tasks (such as transferring photos, ringtones, and music). Even laptops configured to share files via Bluetooth don't allow the client to access the entire filesystem (unless the laptop's owner specifically sets it up that way). BREW applications are hidden deep within the filesystem structure and would risk no additional exposure by enabling the crippled Bluetooth profiles. Ironically enough, BREW games can already be copied using a $20 USB cable - a capability Verizon seems to take very little interest in. As I said, however, you can't do anything with them once they're copied leaving any attempt at piracy pointless, just like Ms. Raney's poor excuse. Q. So what would you say to the consumer who paid for this phone and expected to receive [these features]? A. [When a customer buys a phone] there's a level of risk. ... We never advertised these features.... We have a fifteen day satisfaction guarantee. True, this handset (like all Verizon handsets) do in fact have a 15-day return period - no questions asked. So why don't people just take it back? The problem seems to go back to suspicious misinformation provided to customers and Motorola's seemingly suspicious relationship with Verizion. Many consumers quickly phoned Verizon's customer service department upon realizing the phone lacked some basic functionality. Verizon, rather than telling their customers that the features were crippled, quickly steered them to Motorola for answers. Motorola, in turn, has been informing customers from day 1 that the features were on the way - just hang onto the handset until November 2004. November quickly turned into "December", which has now turned into "at some point in the future". In my discussion with some top people at Motorola (including a lead PR person and a software engineer), I made this known, and was informed that this was a miscommunication in their tech support department that needed to be fixed. I would have believed them if, three months after the fact, they weren't still propagating this misinformation. So like good little customers, most took Motorola at their word and hung onto their handsets beyond the two week refund period. Verizon, of course, maintains plausible deniability with the exception of a few of their "misinformed" sales reps who have provided the same misinformation to customers (verbatim), but I'm sure that's just a coincidence. The interview ended on a rather sour note when I asked Brenda about buying a more feature-equipped phone on my own: Q. When this phone is released to other carriers, will you accept their ESNs if your customers want a fully-functioning phone? A. We don't [activate] phones unless they're ours. If Motorola sells it to another carrier, it may be the a710 or the p710. That's not our phone. So essentially the answer was, if you buy a more functional phone from Sprint or some other CDMA carrier, we'll blacklist it from our network. Unfortunately this conversation only confirmed my nagging suspicion that Verizon's customers were nothing but cattle to be rounded up. Motorola PR, Monica Rohleder confirmed the condition of the phone's features: "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.". Monica has confirmed that OBEX will remain disabled unless Verizon changes their mind. This is somewhat good news, because it suggests the support is in the phone and just needs to be unlocked. Monica also told me that the firmware update they've been discussing for November is unrelated to OBEX, but is a Mobile Phonetools update to allow syncing with Mobile Phonetools over Bluetooth. This still hasn't manifested mid-way through January. If you've been told these features were on the way - they aren't. This isn't the first time customers have felt burned from Verizion. Verizon has developed a quite notorious reputation among mobile users for the revenue they drive from their DRM (digital rights management) campaign. While most other carriers allow you to do pretty much whatever you want with your phone, Verizon prefers to make money every time you transfer a picture, check your email, or do anything that could constitute a value-add. Verizon appears to be actively plugging loopholes as recently customers have found they can no longer email themselves ringtones or backgrounds. If you were able to send files privately to the person next to you using Bluetooth, you'd miss the privilege of using Verizon's public and unencrypted PIX service (which costs $0.25 a picture). If you were able to use a true IM client for chatting, you'd only use up airtime (with free nights and weekends), and then how would you end up having to pay for Verizon's $4.95/mo TXT messaging subscription (the Verizon-provided IM client makes the unnecessary use of TXT messaging to send and receive messages, just as sending a picture through the network uses Verizon's unnecessary PIX service)? If you want to do anything fun with that phone you just shelled out for, Verizon has made sure you are going to pay for it...that's the real security they seem to be concerned about. And what about applications on the v710? Very little software is available for the new phone primarily because Verizon has continued in a long tradition of what many see as customer extortion by locking the phone's software capabilities. Verizon has joined some 35 smaller carriers to profit off of the consumer by pushing Brew on all of their phones. Brew is, to many consumers, a mediocre application platform designed to take their money. To many developers, it's a platform designed to crush free software, independent developers, and let mediocre corporate programmers stay employed. It's written by Qualcomm and designed specifically to enforce the consumer's dependence on the carrier, forcing them to purchase applications only through Verizon. Qualcomm's propaganda to the carrier makes its nature obvious: Brew Equals Revenue. The version of Brew running on the v710 is locked to require every Brew application to be digitally signed (by Verizon) in order to run, and this signature is based on the handset's ESN (electronic serial number). What's the point of doing all this you ask? Qualcomm and Verizon stand behind their anti-piracy propaganda. It must be a mere coincidence that it also locks the consumer into purchasing any games or applications only from Verizon. This effectively locks out third party software manufacturers, allows Verizon to price fix, and snuffs out entirely the independent developer who would like to develop applications for the phone. There will never be such a thing as free software for Brew because it costs developers $4 per phone to digitally sign an application (with a minimum of 100 signatures), not to mention the hefty advance royalties developers are reporting to be charged by Qualcomm. But this is all coincidence. At any rate, Verizon is a dying breed - BREW is being rejected by many large carriers in many countries. KTF (Korea) has recently announced their plans to ditch BREW for a newer, more open standard (WIPI), and other carriers are likely to follow. v710's Redeeming Value Fortunately, if you can live with crippled Bluetooth and lack of POP3 email or a good IM client (or if you happen to be stuck in a Verizon contract), the v710 does sport some great improvements over other Verizon phones. The remaining features of the v710 include:
Key Problems Aside from disabled features, most of the remaining issues with the v710 are unfortunately pretty severe, and quite depressing. With a list price of $519, you'd think that Motorola would have considered some of these issues prior to release. Demand drove the phone out a few months early, but in reality I'd rather have a somewhat working phone than no phone at all - so Kudos to Motorola for at least releasing the phone, but you scored no points on QA whatsoever.
Miscellaneous Bugs in the v710
Motorola Support Naturally, many customers have taken their grievances to the Motorola Support department to try and show them the err of their ways. I contacted Motorola myself only to find their support quite bizarre. The first thing I noticed is that no matter who you speak with, everyone speaks in the same broken, foreign accent - but they all have American names like "Amy" and "Dave". The whole experience screams "witness protection" or perhaps Motorola has moved their support overseas, but assigned each employee an American name to make their customers feel more comfortable (OK Habib, you're Jake today). I guess that's the best you can do if you're too cheap to hire American workers. Anyhow, their front-line support is pretty much clueless, as can come to be expected from any technology company these days. I recommend requesting the technical support department immediately when you call. They can at least act like they can help you by giving you the wrong information about your handset. Morizon? Now I like Motorola a lot. They make great products. But their one flaw in my opinion seems to be getting in bed with the carrier (or at least being a pushover). The long-lived relationship between the carrier and the manufacturer is one of what some would call a co-monopoly. The manufacturer (Motorola) depends on the carrier to become a sales distribution channel, and allow their phones' ESNs on their network. The carrier, in order to do this, requires that the manufacturer allow them to lock the phone up and disable whatever features they request, only instead of the carrier doing the advertising for the phone, the manufacturer assists in a bait-and-switch routine - advertising the full features of the phone, leaving Verizon with plausible deniability when you find out your phone is crippled. The phone you see Motorola advertise on TV doesn't exist - it's not sold to the consumer, but that doesn't stop them from advertising it with the same name as Verizon's model. Agreements like these allow the carrier and the manufacturer to both share power over the consumer and lock out competition, but neither corporation has, to date, been accused of any criminal wrongdoing. This same loving carrier is also our only advocate to Motorola - Motorola's one customer. The v710 is a Verizon-owned phone, which means it is Brew-enabled, DRM-retrofitted, and functionally geared to meet Verizon's specific requirements for profitability. The fact that the phone has a few features consumers like is merely a coincidence, and sadly the phone itself lacks many other features that will most likely never be fixed, at least without giving up more features. BellSouth is the local telephone company where I live. Ironically, they don't seem as much concerned about the features of my home phone or answering machine as Verizon is about my mobile phone. Why is that? Could it be that BellSouth realizes the equipment belongs to me? Yes! Before things were broken up by the courts, AT&T (who owned the network at the time) used to charge their customers equipment rental fees just to own a telephone. In fact, it was at one time illegal to plug anything into your phone jack that wasn't sanctioned AT&T equipment. Asinine, huh? Well, not as much as repeating history. Unfortunately, Verizon doesn't need the courts to outlaw competing technologies - they're able to do it themselves now by blacklisting ESNs, as Ms. Raney gladly explained to me. "So What?" you may ask. The average unsuspecting consumer doesn't seem to have much of a problem being rounded up in the cattle pen. Verizon sells the phone, so they have the right to control it, right? When was the last time you purchased a laptop computer or a PDA and had IBM or HP tell you what you could or could not do with it on the Internet? The phones of today are computers, and people expect a level of functionality and privacy from them (such as Verizon's network never seeing you on the toilet after your spouse gets a hold of your phone). Nobody likes paying hundreds of dollars for something only to have someone disable features, forcing them to use a public network to transfer personal data (and pay for it). The sad state of the industry is that Verizon has become both service provider and hardware manufacturer, a very dangerous combination for those who expect their carrier to earn an honest living. Isn't everyone doing this? No. There are plenty of other carriers that don't seem to have the same control issues. Most GSM carriers provide a full set of features in the phones they sell. The Bluetooth-enabled phones offered by Cingular Wireless include a full set of services, run whatever games you like, and even include an email client. Other major carriers including Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T provide similar quality phones lacking any significant restrictions. No, the tactics Verizon has shown to use in driving up revenue is only characteristic of the carriers in many third-world or communist countries such as China (China Unicom), Taiwan (Vibo), Argentina (Movicom), and Nicaragua (BellSouth Nicaragua) where the Orwellian form of government has been nurtured and propagated. And if Verizon has their way, they'll become the little Machiavelli of the telecom industry. These customer strong-arming tactics are what originally got Microsoft in trouble, and seems to be the signature of some now-dying carriers such as Cellular One. In America, Verizon's profitability appears to have a short life expectancy. So is there any way to fix it? This has happened before in our country. The excuses were similar - the safety of the network, to ensure compatibility, etc. It was only after AT&T started charging consumers the rental fees for telephone equipment that the equipment ban was struck down by the courts. Other countries have laws that prevent carriers from locking their phones to any specific network, so you can buy a phone and use it on any compatible network you like. This opens up the market for feature-rich third-party phones and prevents the manufacturers from getting too close to the carrier. This is probably one reason why other countries always have better mobile phone technology than us. The phones you're using today have been around in other countries since the Matrix phones were popular here (cringe). One of the other problems with the industry is that you don't have to meet any specific service requirements to use the Bluetooth logo, even though Bluetooth is all about interoperability. In contrast, to use the USB logo, you must send in a prototype and have functionality examined and scrutinized (which is probably why the v710's USB cable is sold separately). Establishing requirements for interoperability among device classes would have prevented this ordeal. Device class: Mobile Phone. Interoperability requirements: Hands Free, DUN, OBEX, OPP, Serial. Not doing this has caused many to think twice when they see that Bluetooth logo - a name that can no longer be trusted on its own merit - because nobody likes being bamboozled a second time. Conclusion The Motorola v710 is like a night at the Ramada Inn. You'll find it has many of the necessities you need, but is a very average experience in the end leaving you only with a sigh of mediocrity whenever you look at your phone. Giving it a quick polish to remove fingerprints doesn't help the dirty feeling you're likely to get when you look at it sitting on your desk. In spite of its shortcomings, the Motorola v710 is a good phone if you're stuck with Verizon for one reason or another. Unfortunately, most of the v710's users won't have the pleasure of being able to enjoy many of its features, thanks to their loving carrier. Moo! What else you can do The Bluetooth logo cannot be used without certification from Bluetooth. Even though the technology is designed for interoperability between devices, the Bluetooth SIG is less than assertive in ensuring that the logo ensures this type of interoperability. I've heard that the SIG plans on creating a 'best of breed' class of Bluetooth, but if there is to be a real shake-up with some of these carriers, the Bluetooth logo has to be denied to them unless they conform to specific standards for the class of device (in this case, a mobile phone). Contact the Bluetooth SIG and let them know that you're losing faith in the Bluetooth logo - that you feel it's nothing more than a marketing term to rip consumers off. If consumers can convince them to deny use of the Bluetooth logo to devices lacking these critical modes of interoperability, you'll quickly see Motorola and Verizon singing a new song (take their marketing away and there's not as much much incentive left to buy their handsets). I'm not generally a politically motivated person, but if you agree that it is wrong for carriers to abuse consumers, I encourage you to also read a letter I have written to my representative, and if you agree with the solution, consider sending a copy to your own representative. Many other countries have outlawed the practice of locking phones, or blacklisting ESNs. If similar legislation were passed in the US, this kind of crap wouldn't happen very often. v710 Volume Hack This reportedly only works on some v710 handsets. There seem to be at least two different software revisions going around sharing the same version number.
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