Nokia E62 Removed From NSU... WHY?

I had an interesting conversation earlier with my Symbian-Guru about an issue thats come about between AT&T and Nokia.  Apparently, AT&T/Cingular has requested that Nokia remove the E62 and the N75 from the Nokia Software Updater service.  Now my question is why?

Let's take a look at this.  It could possibly be because of all the hacks for unbranding fw, which I had a feeling that someone would catch on, but there is no need for that when the Nokia Flagship stores sell the unlocked unbranded E62's in the first place.  BUT and this is major... how can a carrier just swoop in and tell the manufacturer what to do with their service?

Ricky used a good word for this.  The consumer or user will be missing out on the whole S60 or Nokia user "experience".  The NSU has provided consumers a way to keep their mobile devices up to date with the latest firmware.  Firmware updates have been provided to fix bugs and also fix and allow compatibility with certain functions.  Why ask that this be removed?

Even more important.... how will AT&T consumers be able to keep their phones up to date now?  Does this mean that we have to march into a retail store and have our firmware updated?   Will this be the return of the Nokia Service Centers here in the US?  This makes my head hurt.

When I started this post Ricky hadn't gotten his up yet, but for more on the issue visit Symbian-Guru.

Comments

[TheFixer]

First off, I'm with you, I think this sucks totally. However, I'm sure the reason they did it is because they can get away with it. American Cellular customers by and large don't know anything! They think a Motorola RAZR is a "Neat" phone. They let their providers sell them crap and then let them "Upgrade" to more "Free" crap for the low low cost of TWO YEAR contract!?

My wife has been out of contract for about a month and a half (We HAD to get a contract to get the SIM card) and they have been pestering us with at least 4 phone calls since then, wanting to UPGRADE her phone. I'd LOVE to tell them we haven't used the phone they FORCED us to "Not" buy since I brought it home, it's still in it's original box.

To me GSM stands for Get-Stupid-Mobile phones away from me, thats why they have a SIM card. This is also why AT&T has been renaming the SIM card in their nokia phones to SmartChip so that the average person hears SmartChip and not SIM card. I couldn't imagine being forced to buy a phone and have to keep it (i.e. Sprint/Verizon/Any other CDMA provider) and if I got tired of it having to buy another phone from the same crappy selection that the provider feels like they need to offer. Sorry if this turned into a RANT, but I feel for all those E62/N75 owners. All I can say is for them to call their providers and tell them this is BS.

Just my $.02

--
TheFixer
Eagerly awaiting my E90.
As always buy Unbranded and Unlocked!

[Mobilelifer]

This does indeed suck but surely I assume it will only be the AT&T/Cingular E62's that will not connect to the service? Every branded version of FW has it's own product code so I would hope that they have struck a deal with Nokia just to block their own branded handsets.

We suffer with the same issues over here in the UK with branding and with Orange in particular who have never been able to successfully brand an S60 handset in their life.

The worrying trend in this is that once one network provider gets away with it they will all want to do it. Why can't they just stick to providing the airtime and leave making the phones work to the manufacturers? I debranded My Vodafone N73 but I guess in the future I will go back to buying Sim Free as I have in the past.

[krisse]

Like I keep saying, operator locked phones should be banned, they cause nothing but lousy service and high prices. There's absolutely no advantage whatsoever to the customer with locked phones, and even the manufacturers hate them too. The only reason they exist is to reduce competition between phone operators.

If operators want to subsidise phones, that has nothing whatsoever to do with locking them. If you buy a car on credit, no one locks it to only work with a particular kind of fuel. If you buy a TV on credit, no one locks it to only work with certain channels. If you take out a mortgage on a house, no one locks you into buying your electricity or furniture from particular suppliers. You still have to pay loans back even if the product you're buying is completely unlocked.

[Ejp1457]

I have to say that I'm frustrated that I can't get my E62 unbranded all because Nokia nor Cingular will allow it. Because of all of these restrictions I will never buy any wireless devices from AT&T/Cingular for personal use.
It's interesting, even the company I work for said that unless you have to do international calling any new wireless phone service must be with Sprint. We're dropping Cingular as a preferred provider.
I'm very suprised that Nokia would take a position that in my opinion cripples the phone maker.
Just my opinion, forgive my rant also but the nerve of Cingular. Its like they developed the E-Series phones.
Have a nice day!

[Juan chavez]

Ok when i got E62 phone it worked Great. One thing i loved was that i was able to go on yahoo mail threw the web browser and i was able to do everything i could do on a PC. 2 months later nothing.after i entered my screen name and password it said i didnt have java enaBled which i did. I spent about 60 hours on the phone with at&t and three phone later nothing. At the end they said call nokia well after 30 hours later they told me to update my firm wire with the updater. I down loaded it.then then nothing happend it couldnt be updated.i give up. One thing i did notice is that at&t was pushing me to buy the yahoo mail program from them witch sucks becouse you cant down load attachments like i did before. I cant login to etrade or myspace which for some reasom at&t have there progrems you can buy from them but just like yahoo it doesnt compare to the way it worked the first 2 months just like a PC what happened after that 2 months. My phone stoped working correctly around sept 2006 it is now july 2007 and i still have a phone that worked great for 2 months to a phone that im limited to what websites i can go to. AT&T said the E62 is a full javascipt ,httml capable what happened? Help!

[Zeke]

I was wondering, I have a copy of Nokia Software that I downloaded before they took it off their website. Could I use this to update or unbrand my phone...?

Zeke