So you're sitting back, enjoying your the new Windows phone you received over the holidays. Downloading apps, emails, and sending text messages to your hearts content on that "unlimited" data plan? Did you know that there may be a restriction on your "unlimited" plan? Restrictions, if violated, could result in your service being terminated?

We checked the fine print with the four major carriers in the U.S. market and found some interesting language as it relates to unlimited packages. Language that many may not be aware of and we felt it important to pass it on. A public service announcement of sorts. Ease on past the break to see what limits are in place.

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This should come as a surprise to no one, given that it was painfully obvious in the Marketplace screenshots Malatesta broke over the weekend, but Microsoft apparently is in talks with carriers to have their own customizations in the Windows Marketplace.

As you can see above, it looks like AT&T will have its own little corner, and talks are under way overseas, too, according to Tweakers.net: (Apologies for the translation)

Microsoft wants to close deals with the major providers to the 'branded' versions. "Then about O2, Telefonica and Vodafone, large telco's," says Maarten Sonneveld, business group lead for Microsoft Mobile Netherlands. The providers may 'branded' versions use own ROMs of Windows Mobile devices.

Questions still remain as to what will actually be in the Marketplace upon launch. (For that matter, we still have no idea when the Marketplace and Windows Mobile 6.5 will launch.) We know of a bunch of developers who plan to be there from the outset, but the list of prohibited apps we found over the weekend has a lot of people scratching their heads. We'll just have to wait and see.

Via Unwired View

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One question we get a lot as moderators or technical writers in the WM world has to do with Sprint and their MMS service called “Picture Mail”, specifically why is the service not offered for all Windows Mobile devices (as well as BlackBerry) on that network?

For a long time, it was common practice for users to download a 3rd party program aka ArcSoft MMS Composer aka “the MMS hack” to enable the feature, but even that stopped working at the beginning of February. In short, Sprint figured out how to directly block just WM users form the service.

Why so? Will it change? What are the hacks to get around the block? Are you violating Sprint’s Terms and Services? Read on for the scoop…

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PCWorld has just posted a general overview of the basic issues that face somebody interested in buying a Smartphone. For those of us in the mobile world, there's no new information here, but it's a nice one-stop article for new people who don't know the difference between UMTS and IMAP (mixed categories.. shudder):

There is no single greatest handset for all users, but with a little bit of forethought, you can easily choose the best phone and service plan for your own business needs.

Read: PC World - How to: Buy a Mobile Phone

I link it for two reasons: 1) the above mentioned "save this link for the next time somebody asks you about mobile phones" and, more importantly, 2) I think the article is exactly backwards when it comes to buying a mobile phone. Let's assume you're interested in buying a smartphone and, naturally, you think that you're going to want a very powerful device -- so you've settled on Windows Mobile as your platform of choice. What next?.

If you're not careful, you'll let the gadgetlust tail wag the smartphone dog. So read on for the "default advice" I give to friends, family, and even enemies (turn the other cheek, right?) about how to buy a Smartphone.

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Verizon did it, Sprint did it, and Cingular did it, now T-Mobile has too: raised the per-message cost of SMS messages. I guess they were just feeling left out. I'm still bothered by the fact that as the infrastructure costs of this data goes does that the price is going up, but oh well. I recently switched to an unlimited text plan, so I'm not sure I'll be able to use this technical breach of contract to break my contract, but if you're itching to leave T-Mo, here's your chance.

As has been the case when other carriers have made similar moves, this constitutes a material breach of contract on T-Mobile's part, allowing customers to jump ship without paying the hefty $200-per line ETF

Read: T-Mobile increasing SMS rates, get out while you still can : The Boy Genius Report

You really want to check out a couple of posts over at the Consumerist: "7 Confessions of a Cingular Sales Rep" and "8 Confessions of a Former Verizon Sales Rep". Both are chock-full of tips and tricks for getting the most out of these blood-suckers (the carriers, not the reps) when it comes time to upgrade your phone or change your plan. The gist: use the reps' incentives to your advantage. They get a big boost from text message plans, so offering to sign up for one of those should net you savings elsewhere. And with carriers constantly raising the costs of non-plan text messages, you probably should be getting one of those unlimited plans anyway (and the unlimited data plan too, lest you end up with a $8,677.29 phone bill).

Update: Add confessions from a Sprint rep to the mix.

Bully to Skype, who recently used Tim Wu's stirring (though academic, in both senses of the word) call for Mobile Net Neutrality as support for a petition to the FCC. At issue is that carriers are deliberately blocking their software, and Skype believes that current laws on the books say that's not so. I don't have a lot of confidence this will go anywhere (neither does the linked Ars Technica article), but it's nice to see people lining up.

Whether the carriers are blocking me from updating my WM phone to the latest ROM because they're overcautious, trying to get me to pay for walled-garden-style services I should be able to access for free elsewhere, or hiking SMS prices even as the cost to them is dropping, US carriers are really getting on my nerves lately.

Skype yesterday petitioned the FCC to lay the smack down on wireless phone carriers who "limit subscribers' right to run software communications applications of their choosing" (read: Skype software). Skype wants the agency to more stringently apply the famous 1968 Carterfone decision that allowed consumers to hook any device up to the phone network, so long as it did not harm the network. In Skype's eyes, that means allowing any software or applications to run on any devices that access the network.

Read: Skype asks FCC to open up cellular networks

A week ago I wrote a long rant about the wireless carrier business model after the news that a few carriers were plotting a walled-garden-style rival to Google and Yahoo. Well, it looks like I'm not alone in that hope, BoingBoing.net points us to a great new paper from Colubmia University's Tim Wu which calls for a new model of wireless service.

Most interesting (from my initial skim, anyway) are the parallels the paper draws between the current state of the wireless industry and the monopolistic practices of AT&T in the mid 20th-century. Seriously, folks, go get the pdf and read it over your lunchbreak sometime.

Over the next decade, regulators will spend increasing time on the conflicts between the private interests of the wireless industry and the public's interest in the best uses of its spectrum. This report examines the practices of the wireless industry with an eye toward understanding their influence on innovation and consumer welfare.

This report finds a mixed picture. The wireless industry, over the last decade, has succeeded in bringing wireless telephony at competitive prices to the American public. Yet at the same time we also find the wireless carriers aggressively controlling product design and innovation in the equipment and application markets, to the detriment of consumers. Their policies, in the wired world, would be considered outrageous, in some cases illegal, and in some cases simply misguided.

Read: SSRN-Wireless Network Neutrality by Tim Wu

A new rumor, that a group of companies wants to create a walled-garden-style search engine for mobile devices, is just the latest in a long string of abuses heaped upon the consumer by mobile carriers. Read on for a good old fashioned rant about the state of mobile data services in the US.

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