Are You Sure That Cingular Really Wants to Deactivate the Treo 650 DUN Profile?
Rumors are flying all over the place that Cingular will ship the Treo 650 with its DUN (Dial-Up Networking) Bluetooth profile deactivated. My question is, why are people so quick to blame Cingular? Isn't it possible that there's a reason that the U.S. wireless carriers have elected to have the DUN profile turned off, other than profit maximization?
Consider the following:
- Cingular has handsets on the market today that support the DUN profile, including:
Why would Cingular allow DUN profile use on these handsets, yet deactivate it on the Treo 650?
- The review of the Treo 650 in PC Magazine by Joel Santo Domingo says:
You can't, however, use the Treo 650 as a Bluetooth modem (via Dial-Up Networking) with your notebook, since Sprint has locked up that feature for now; watch for a future firmware upgrade that will enable it.
The review talks about the Sprint version of the Treo 650 of course-- it's the only one on the market. But why isn't the "future firmware upgrade" to support the DUN profile promised in so many articles about the Treo 650 taken at face value? Handspring / palmOne has had a number of wireless data application problems dating back to the Treo 180. As a user of the Treo 180, I experienced repeatable handset crashes when my phone came back on the network with a large number of incoming SMS messages waiting. The problem affected several Treo 180s I had with several different firmware revisions.
The Treo 650 is a very different animal than the Treo 180, but palmOne has had persistent wireless networking glitches in the past. Couldn't there be a stability or performance problem holding up the works?
- Cingular is in the early stages of promoting its EDGE high speed wireless data service. Sources inside the company have told me that it's looking for applications that make EDGE preferable to standard GPRS. Wouldn't use of the DUN profile be a great justification for using EDGE?
I once heard someone say that there's a simple explanation for everything, and sometimes that explanation is wrong. We should be careful not to jump to conclusions on the Treo 650 Bluetooth feature set, simply because it reminds us of the changes Verizon intentionally made to the Motorola V710.
Comments
Certainly it's possible that the carriers have requested that the Treo 650 Bluetooth DUN profile be disabled due to technical issues.
However, palmOne now offers an "unbranded" SIM-UNlocked version of the Treo 650. The SIM-UNlocked Treo 650, available directly from palmOne for an unsubsidized price, includes fully ENabled Bluetooth DUN features.
If there are technical issues behind the major carriers having disabled DUN in their branded versions of the Treo 650, then shouldn't the palmOne branded, SIM-UNlocked phone also be subject to the same technical issues?
Maybe palmOne has a fix and they've incorporated it into the SIM-UNlocked? If the carriers have disabled DUN purely for technical reasons then we should expect to see the DUN features made available on the carrier-branded phones as soon as they can get the associated firmware or other update out the door. UNLESS, of course, the real reasons are business driven (as so many have surmised) and NOT technical.
It's good to know that Sprint has indicated that they intend to enable the feature. I hope that Cingular and other carriers will do so as well.
Regards,
\Leon
P.S. And by the way, I called Cingular on Feb 2, 2005 to specifically ask about the disposition of the Bluetooth DUN profile on their version of the Treo 650. The Cingular agent was surprisingly knowledgeable about the issue, how Sprint handled it, the well-known hack, etc. Apparently this particular agent spends a lot of time reading many blogs, such as this one. The agent asserted that Cingular would be leaving DUN fully ENabled and also directed me to phonescoop.com as one source to confirm his assertion. SEE the following, though nothing on their page is Cingular-specific: http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=638
My Cingular branded Treo 650 just showed up today, and I can confirm that the DUN feature is quite DISabled. Fortunately, I have NOT yet activated a plan / contract, so I can still return it if I can't get something in writing from Cingular that they intend to enable DUN on this phone.
I'll write again if I have any good news.
Posted by: Leon Shaner | February 7, 2005 7:49 PM