How Do We Get Out Of This One?

Verizon has come up with a brilliant excuse for leaking call records and other private information to the federal government's illegal wiretapping program.  Brace yourself.  Its was "Free Speech".  Wow, I know just takes your breath away, doesn't it?  Who would be so callous as to attack one of the most hallowed and unifying principles of our nation?

So the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is Unconstitutional and Verizon is a wonderful company that fights for the American way of life that 'the man' is always trying to stifle.  And if you believe that I've got a bridge to sell you.  Anyone?  No takers?

This is particularly ridiculous because their first defense of "just following orders" got shot down by a judge.  Sure, it wasn't a good excuse, but it makes the subsequent claim of "oh, it was completely our volition and we were just expressing ourselves" sound particularly weak.

I know, it looks like we're close to nailing some bass-holes to the wall, but the Brush administration is working on pushing through a chunk of legislation that would grant immunity to the poor, picked-upon telcos.  Seems kinda shady; Verizon did a favor and gets a little in return.

• Techdirt: Verizon Says It Has A First Amendment Right To Illegally Give Your Call Records To The Government

I Can't Park In The Lobby?

Was this the plan? "I'm upset that my phone doesn't work so I drive my car into your building"? A man in South Korea drove a Mercedes with "Delinquent SK" written on it through the front door. (Well, as far through a revolving door as a car will fit.) Somehow I don't think this resolved his troubles, even though it was a very effective attention getting device.

• Engadget: Man returns phone to carrier... without leaving car

For A Good Time, Call.

Hmmm... who gets paid for talking on the phone?  Tech support guys...  video game tipsters...  Uh, can you think of any more clean examples?

Skype is adding a feature where one party can request to be paid (either an upfront fee or by the minute) for carrying on a conversation.  So now you can start whatever kind of phone based moneymaking scheme you've been dreaming of, without having to be completely legit.  Of course Skype reserves 30% of the fee for themselves, but passes the rest directly into your Paypal account.  (Is 30% a pretty standard pimping fee, or are they way off base here?)

• Lifehacker: Get paid to talk with SkypePrime

Snake In The Phone.

See?  Now this is the kind of noise that makes me not want to be a wireless customer.  They've got "sticky downwards" pricing, which means its much easier for the customer charge to go up than down.  There are all kinds of taxes in your phone bill that tack on extra charges and they don't hesitate to pass new taxes right on to their customers rather than take a hit on the bottom line.  But don't go thinking, even for a second, that you'll see the friendly end of a tax-break on that bill.  Those go straight in the snake's pockets.

• Techdirt: Sprint Passes Along Tax Increases To Customers, But Conveniently Ignores Tax Cuts

I can't wait till someone takes the wind out of these guys' sails and tells it like it is.  They're a "bit pipe" like TechDirt says in discussing the reasons that Verizon declines on the iPhone earlier.  They want to be content providers and are getting dragged kicking and screaming into providing only a connection.  ( Like when we recently reset our Comcast connection and they needed our Comcast email address to complete it.  We don't know our Comcast address.  We don't use our Comcast address and we never will.)  Anyway, that's apparently why Apple went with Cingular over Verizon, the latter wasn't willing to be more of a "bit pipe" letting Apple handle more content and service than ever before.  The Verizon CEO said "They would have been stepping in between us and our customers to the point where we would have almost had to take a back seat … on hardware and service support,"  Shit, that's the best sales pitch Verizon could've made to me.  "We're not really in charge of anything."  Where do I sign up for that?

• Techdirt: Verizon Implies Cingular's Giving Up Way Too Much To Carry The iPhone
• Verizon rejected Apple iPhone deal - USATODAY.com

I'll Have Your Network With His Phone And Their Services.

I saw a commercial yesterday - I dunno why I saw a commercial, I must have been spacing on the fast forward button - for a cell phone or something. It was called Helio and was almost in the style of those Old Navy commercials that make me vomit. Not so much in the dancing around to hip music trying to be a GAP ad, but in the cool young people having fun with whatever the product is. I know that sounds vague, but I'm fine with it. Anyway, the one guy finds the other guy using the phone's GPS or something (kinda cool) and the other guy says something about Google Maps on his phone. Alright, I'm listening.

Well, I wanted to find out more about this product, but I couldn't remember the name of the company (advertising is very effective on me) until I read an article about how bad Cingular sucks and someone asked what the deal with Helio was in the comments. (no one answered him) Ah! It was called Helio. Wiki to the rescue-

Helio is a MVNO joint venture between SK Telecom and Earthlink. MVNO means that they don't own any licensed spectrum but rent service from other providers. Look at the coverage map of my area. No whitespace. They've got a ton of 3G coverage that they lease from Sprint and they lease voice only access from Verizon for all the other areas. What? They only reason I'm on Verizon is because they have the most pervasive coverage in my area. They don't have the best service they have the most ubituitous service. And now they don't have that because I can go through someone else to get a hybrid service. So right out of the blocks that's sounding sweet. But there's more:

The premise of this new company would be to bring advanced mobile devices in service from SK Telecom's home market of Korea to the US wireless market, where such advanced devices had been noted, by many, to be lacking. Helio, as it was to be called, would market itself to the younger demographic, promoting itself using the latest in cutting-edge handset technology. They plan to avoid taking on the major US wireless carriers directly, and instead they intend to carve out a niche for themselves with technology-savvy consumers.

Yeah? Bringing some of that rocking handset technology over here from Korea? Awesome. And marketing themselves to a savvy consumer base sounds like they won't want to piss people off by crippling their phones.

Want some more? Ok, they realize they're selling convergence items. So after you switch over for one of their devices you can send in your old tech for cash rewards. Like the phone in my pocket is worth a $46.75 trade-in. And I'm pretty sure I've got a couple more in my glove box. But its not just phones. They want iPods, PSPs, cameras, PDAs whatever your new convergence device is replacing. I mean, sure maybe you could get more for it on eBay if you're willing to put a bit more effort into it. But I find it very refreshing for a company to embrace convergence and enable its customers' transition.

That and the options look so freaking simple. Pick a phone, pick how many minutes you want and pick a data option. 65 or 40 bucks a month. I obviously need to look around a little more but this sounds like the kind of company I'm angling for.

• Helio | Drift, Hero, & Kickflip cell phones, MySpace Mobile, buddy beacon, mobile games, & more