Here is Verizon's official answer...

Heh. They sure take a long time to say a whole lot of nothin', don't they?

I find it's interesting that they "imply" it's a phone problem, when it isn't "I am unable to provide information regarding which equipment is being considered..."

Oh well, we have PCs and PDAs to get that phone book in there...

"We never stop working for you!"

 

Translated we have been there and done that and got sued for it and are now paying the v710 folks off in a class action law suit. And I am part of it and I am glad! They lied to me when I got my phone period. I am lucky that I have choices where I live, so I will dump them and go to someone else. Saddly in some parts of the country Verizon is the only realistic option if you want good coverage. Hopfully that will change

 

Well... you know if they actually leveled with you and told you the truth about why OBEX is disabled...

it would be basically because they are trying to restrict your usage of the phone... they want to control what you do or do not do with your phone, forcing you to pay way too much money for ring tones for example.

 

And it's not the phone. Verizon cripples the phones that they provide on purpose because they A) think their customers [are idiots and] will never use the features and B) they don't want to support anything they don't understand.

In my opinion, Verizon is the WORST mobile telephony company to do business with.

And other better mobile phone networks to use, like Cingular and Tmobile that allow more than just voice communications!
Yes, I realize that Verizon has sms and data services, but they are a complete hack; something that they produced LONG after everyone else was doing it.


"We never stop working for you!" - becuse we never started.

 

AAAmen!

 

Hmmmm... I may have worded it poorly, but we actually said the same thing. What I was saying is their quote made it look like they were trying to blame the phone (let's see what new devices come out down the road), when in fact THEY are the reason the devices don't work (as you said).

Hey, wait a minute, looking back, I did word it correctly, why did you correct me...? (I said "they "imply" it's a phone problem, when it isn't")

 

I have Verizon service with a Motorola e815, and find that I can accomplish most of the things that V seems to be discouraging, by one means or other, w/o "hacking" the phone.

Using the TransFlash card, I can upload/download photos, video clips, music, or ringtones to the phone.

To get a ringtone to work it must reside in the phone's memory and not on the TransFlash, and to get it to memory one must send it as an attachment in a message to a number like 222-222-2222, then open the message (after failure) and save the file to the phone memory. Or you can pay $0.25 and email the file to your phone. 3 can be sent in one msg if they are not too long. The cell-phone web sites (such as howardforums) have a lot of useful info, and ring tones can be found for free on the web.

Using my Powerbook I can transfer my phone book to the Prius. This is not much of a hardship, since it is nice to set up the phone's phone book on a computer anyhow, and useful to have it live on the computer as a backup. You probably want a special set of 17 numbers for the Prius anyhow (I did). I find the handsfree system to be very effective.

It may be possible to use the phone as a bluetooth modem, but I have not explored that.

The one thing I don't understand is, if V simply wants you to pay for transferring photos via pix messages, why do they allow the TransFlash transfer? And, since they allow card i/o, why do they disable bluetooth file transfers? Is it possible they actually _are_ concerned about BT security, that is, about a stranger in a bar pulling down your whole phone book? (Nah ...)

Finally - does anyone know if the 2006 Prius offers a different way of loading the phone book?

 

Wait until you guys get a load of this: :lol:

Verizon Wireless tops in Consumer Reports' annual survey
By Kelly Hill
Dec 6, 2005

YONKERS, N.Y.-Wireless carriers struck out for a fourth straight year in the annual survey of cellular service and phones conducted by independent evaluator Consumer Reports. Cingular Wireless L.L.C. acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services Inc. came under particularly harsh criticism because of problems reported by former AWS customers.

Only 47 percent of the 50,515 survey respondents in 18 metropolitan areas reported being either satisfied or very satisfied with their cell phone service. The magazine gave cellular phone service a score of 67, essentially the same as last year's score of 66. A score of 100 would mean that all participants were completely satisfied; 80 would mean an average customer was very satisfied, and 60 would reflect somewhat satisfied customers. Typical complaints included static, blocked called and lack of service.

"Despite fierce competition among carriers and cell towers seemingly sprouting up overnight in many places, cell phone service isn't getting any better," the magazine reported.

Verizon Wireless kept its top survey ranking for most metropolitan markets and was Consumer Report's pick as the best national carrier. T-Mobile USA Inc. took second, followed by Sprint Nextel Corp.; Cingular trailed behind. For the first time, regional carriers U.S. Cellular Corp. and Alltel Corp. made the list with U.S. Cellular performing well in Chicago and Alltel performing well in Phoenix.

Sprint Corp. acquired Nextel Communications Inc. shortly before Consumer Reports' survey went out, so they were evaluated as separate carriers in this year's survey. Sprint earned middling marks and Nextel received low customer satisfaction scores in the survey.

Consumer Reports noted that more than half of the Cingular customers who participated in the survey were former AWS customers, and customers who kept their old AWS phones were far less satisfied with their service than those who bought new Cingular phones.

In addition to carrier rankings, Consumer Reports also asked customers to rate handsets. Motorola Inc.'s E815 was rated top for Verizon Wireless' network. The PalmOne Inc. Treo 650 headed up the list of Sprint Nextel phones, and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s e335 garnered the highest ranking of GSM phones.



LINK: http://www.rcrnews.com/news.cms?newsId=25008

 

Well, let's face it -- we as Prius owners are pissed at Verizon, but in general, they have great coverage, and handle customer interaction better than 'average'.

The only thing I don't like about them at the moment is what they did to the phone book transfer to my Prius.

I never have an issue with coverage, dropped calls, or their response to my calls. But I would like to kick them in the butt over the Bluetooth transfer issue...

 

Yeah, that is indeed a whacky issue. What is even nuttier is the fact that some of their PDA/phones have uncrippled Bluetooth and, now, they have allowed the Nokia 6256i to be released with OPP! So, the 6256i is fully functional with the Prius (Denso BT kit), including phonebook transfer. But VZW has decided not to sell it directly at this point; it's only available via indirect channels, like Best Buy and Radio Shack.

It will be interesting to see what develops after people start receiving their CDMA RAZRs (V3c), which should be within the next day or so. There have been some early reports that VZW didn't mess around with OBEX on the V3c.

 

This is also from the same country that elected this guy:
[Broken External Image]:http://www.stopthemonkey.org/archives/Bush Bird copy.jpg


There are ways to transfer music, ringtones, pictures, etc... using bluetooth on some Verizon phones.
Most LG, Samsung, Sanyo and Audiovox CDMA phones can use BitPim to transfer data via a serial 'file system' interface.

 

From the John Kerry for President Volunteer Center:

Phone Party
WHEN: October 30 @ 1:00 PM

WHERE: Lee and Rays House
San Diego, CA 92110
Bay Park- VERIZON PHONES ONLY

HOST: Lee and Ray Murphy

INFO: Afternoon Phone Party
Bring snacks or drinks to share (no alcohol)
Coffee and tea provided.
ONLY VERIZON PHONES WORK AT THIS LOCATION

:lol: :lol:

 

I have to agree that Verizon has good coverage. In some places like Montana it is the only choice and part of the reason that I went to Verizon was Consumer Reports. I was happy enough with them until I got the v710 the sales person and the people at the corporate 1-800 assured me that the problems with Bluetooth incapability with my car was being fixed and would be available by the end of September. Motorola confirmed that they had the fix done and were testing it. So I kept the phone past the point I could return it. Then it was pushed back to October, November, December then the waffling started. First we did not add the OBEX to protect users from viruses. They nearly a year later the update flash for the phone comes and you can no longer transfer photos using the flash card. Now the tune is that OBEX and transfer of photos "is not consistent with our business model" The truth comes out. I would have been OK with Verizon and not bought the phone if they told me it would not work as other Bluetooth phones. I would have still moved to another provider but I would have had the information I needed to make a choice. I think the Verizon does not want my business. It took months of phone calls to them and Motorola to get the truth out of them. They never intended to make the phone fully compatible, and given their present releases they have no plans to. They want to disable the phone so they can collect revenue from games, ring tones, and photos. All things I don't need or want. Synchronizing my address book and phone book is. I can get buy in my area with Cingular where they have adequate coverage in my area and most big cities that I visit.

 

Until more phones support the full range of Bluetooth services, we are not seeing the full potential for the technology. Innovation is stifled because of the lack of devices out there.

USB first started out with only a handful of devices... some mice and keyboards for example. Imagine where we would be with USB if someone like Dell decided that USB was only good for mice and restricted the USB to only support mice because 90% of the people at the time only used it for that purpose.

I personally have a Sony Ericsson phone with a full bluetooth stack. For about 4 years now, I've been able (with some 3rd party software) to use my cell phone as a bluetooth remote control for my Mac.
I use my phone for presentations instead of buying a 3rd party IR clicker. I use it to navigate through my music or as a DVD player remote from across the room. And coolest of all, my computer pauses my music, my DVD player, and acts as a caller-ID when my phone rings. When i finish the call, it picks up right where it left off. When I leave my apartment, the computer is smart enough to detect that my bluetooth phone is no longer in range and locks itself.

http://www.salling.com/Clicker/windows/

I show these features to people, and it is still very amazing to people, even though Bluetooth has been on the market in phones for many years. People don't think of the possibility of doing useful stuff like this because the phones from certain carriers don't support features that would make it possible.

I am convinced that stuff like Salling clicker is Bluetooth's killer app, and I would be thrilled if everyone started using it like I do... but the carrier's greed is a pretty big hurdle.