T Mobile Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

I have just heard from Andy Munarriz over at Hullomail that after significant effort, T Mobile have issued new divert numbers (03) for Hullomail.

This means that all divert charges will be removed from the bills of G1 and T Mobile customers - aligning itself with all the other major mobile telcos. Whilst it does use up your bundled calls this is a substantial step forward.

Congratulations to Andy and the team for all his efforts.

The Register - T-Mobile flips bird to alternative voicemail

Big shout out to The Register who have picked up on the injustice of the T-Mobile divert charges. More can be found at the following:

T-Mobile flips bird to alternative voicemail

T-Mobile UK believes in openness - really?

I have tracked down some footage from the T-Mobile UK launch of the G1, where Pieter de Klein, Head of Social Media talks about Android and the G1's capabilities. My highlights are:

Time 01:50 "the beauty of it is, it's open we at T-Mobile don't need to develop all the services there is a whole range of people who get on with it - there's new stuff every day - it's really exciting"

Time 04:02 "at the end, its about openness and mass market"

I am not convinced that T-Mobile have really embraced openness, with their anti-competitive behaviour toward alternative voicemail providers.

Please, please, please sign my petition which can be found here.

T-Mobile Petition

My waiting is over - the time has come to be heard.

I have prepared a petition to demand that T-Mobile drop its predatory pricing policy for the use of alternative voicemail providers and align its pricing with other major UK mobile telecom providers.

I implore you to please sign the petition which can be found here.

Mr T Mobile, I am still waiting

Since sending my letter to T-Mobile's customer service team on 12 January 2009, I have had no response. Very disappointing.

In addition, I have received my T-Mobile bill for February 2009 - I am disappointed to report that I have been charged 17p per minute for each voicemail received by preferred service provider HulloMail.

Mr T-Mobile, I want my money back

I recently bought a T-Mobile G1 phone, only to discover that if I were to use an alternative voicemail provider I would incur an excessive diversion charge.

Ordinarily I would be charged 12 pence per minute for my voicemail calls. Diverting my calls to an innovative voicemail provider such as HulloMail or SpinVox would incur a diversion charge of 17 pence per minute. I would go so far as to suggest that the cost of the diversion to an alternative voicemail service may be considered to be anti-competitive.

What really annoys me is how can a full voicemail service cost 12 pence per minute, whilst a diversion charge is 17 pence per minute. This is clearly unrepresentative of T-Mobile's marginal costs.

A copy of the full letter which I sent to T Mobile customer services on 12 January 2009 can be found below: