Cingular and BCGI to shut down pay-as-you-go immediately
posted October 18th 2005 5:25PM
It's only a fraction of Cingular's 50 some odd million customers that use their GoPhone pay-as-you-go service, but
they'll presumably be shutting those people down right quick after a federal judge found the nation's largest carrier
guilty of willfully infringing patents owned by Freedom Wireless for pay-as-you-go phone sales and management. Barring
an appeal successfully staying the injunction, the carrier will have 90 days to wind things down. Oh, and to make sure
they get cracking, they'll have to pay Freedom a penalty of 2.5 cents for every minute someone makes a call using
Cingular's GoPhone service — something which will probably cost Cingular an arm and a leg, you can imagine how quickly
per-minute rates will add up for even just a single end-user. Now let's see how far Cing gets in their appeals,
eh?
[Via PhoneScoop]
UPDATE: Cingular says that this doesn't affect the "vast majority" of pre-paid subscribers and that it's limited to TDMA, not GSM users.
Since it's PRE-pad service, wonder how they're going to go about refunding folks?
GoPhone is not a TDMA product.
One word: OUCH.
hmmm... i guess i'm part of the extremely small percent of users....
I wonder what our options are going to be.
It is difficult to make sure your not infringing on any pattents and it is annoying as hell for companies who thought they haven't copied someone.
Poor cingular. This will probobly cost millions if not billions.
I say there needs to be a revolution in the cell carrier market in the US. Stuff is getting majorly shitty (all over).
Zigma is fed up.
This is only for TDMA. this is not that big of a deal. CIngular has a lot more GSM GoPhone customers than TDMA prepaid.
check hofo, www.howardforums.com
I'm sure there's like 500 threads about this already
That is LAME. Anyone could have come up with pay as you go iead. This rush to patent any silly idea has gotten way out of hand and stands ONLY to slow progres.
I have an idea... huh... sell phone minutes will 900 numbers. You call 900- xxx - and the number of minutes you want to buy them. There that is my idea...
I don't want locked devices
I don't want to have to pay for incoming
I want better faster 3G...
Zigma is furious
Zigma is a BIG baby
Between the Blackberry thing and this -- things are fucking ridiculous. What am I supposed to tell my grandmother to do in an emergency when they shut off her phone? She loves that Blackberry! (OK I mean she likes the peace of mind that she has a GoPhone 'just in case'..)
I'd like to see some class action suits filed by the actual USERS of these devices against the IP shell companies that are bringing the smackdown.
Does anyone know if this effects KIC customers? My brother still has a KIC phone, and I would hate for our rates to up and dissappear, when he barely uses the phone. Still, he does need it.
So I wonder if Cingular is going to refund people for these pre-paid bricks they bought?
I thought this affected the Free2Go plans (ie legacy AWS TDMA prepaid)...
Not the GoPhone.
If paying 2.5c per minute to Freedom costs Cingular an arm and a leg, it's gonna make their logo look pretty damn weird.
Read the linked article. It's the TDMA service only, not the GSM Go Phones.
Zigma your hilarious. I was a Cingular pre-paid customer a few years back, but luckily I've since moved out of the country. It was my understanding however, that Europe was one of the first places where pre-paid cell phone usage really caught on. How could this be copyright infringement if it had already been going on for years and widely known about?
Freedom is just trying to take advantage of Cingular because it's the big boy. I hope this doesn't effect Cingular too much. More law suites = less money = less service = Not good for Cingular customers (me).
dedicated to # 13 .. and the maker of this here bong [URL=http://www.zippyvideos.com/3627993971781446/deathtogoph/]
[IMG]http://i1.zvhost.com/1/z/z876h60c.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
http://www.zippyvideos.com/3627993971781446/deathtogoph/
my 13 yr old is freaking out she has to get another #
LOL! Oh, the irony of them having to pay a telephone company for minutes and it costing them an arm and a leg. its about time.
Okay, this nearly scared the crap out of me. Thank goodness for the update. I will now go change underwear.
mcstubbs1, the suite is based on the way cingular tracks minutes and how customers pay.
Considering that Cingular charges $15 per month/30days for Free2Go where ATT only charged $10 per 3 months/90d and so on => Cingular has got quite a bit of breathing room (and it's not like the existing Free2Go uses have an alternative). Bigger $ amounts still expire in half the time ATT used to give ... No matter how many like Cingular. Those rolled over from ATT Free2Go don't, until they bring back the old prices.
This ruling is against BCGI first and secondly carriers that used its payment services: ATTWS Cingular CMT and Western Wireless). The only reason why Cingular is the focus is because they are BCGI's largest customer (due to the merger), and because they are fronting the money to appeal the case above that which BCGI can not afford on their own ($41 million).
In the begining of '03 ATTWS Free2Go (BCGI) made up around 5% of the 1 million total prepaid customers. Cingular KIC made up around 6% of the 1.4 million prepaid customers.
Cingular KIC with outsourced BCGI was limited to TMDA technology only.
ATTWS Free2Go was a TDMA prepaid implementation started in late 2000.
ATTWS GoPhone was one of the firt implmentations of GSM for ATTWS. Basically a trial launch for GSM it was in house and did not rely on "refill cards" as customers could refill with cash at a retail store, or setup an autodraft from a CC/Debit Card.
Any ramifications faced by Cingular Wireless are close to insignificant. The remaining TDMA prepaid customers are slim, mostly elderly and people that have managed to keep their 3lb nokia bricks in working order.
In addition there is some uncertainty as to how the lawsuit would effect those remaining customers. The merger has created the need for a prepaid payment system that would cover all of the cash-based prepaid implementations by the two companies over the past years (Take Charge, KIC, Cingular Prepaid, Free2Go and the new GoPhone Pay-As-You-Go). Customers of all these legacy prepaid implementations now purchase CINGULAR Pay-As-You-Go refill cards or skip the cards all together and purchase PINs from payment stations or registers at company owned retail locations.
Effective 10/18 Cingular has mandated the nationwide ceasing of prepaid TDMA activations. Regardless of equipment ownership.