How To Make Your Nokia N95 100 Percent

It seems some of the global mobile carriers in some parts of the world just can't let a great phone stay great. I'm referring to the Nokia N95 that has more bells and whistles than just about any mobile phone on the planet.

So just like Cingular disemboweled the Nokia E61 and gave the USA market the feature reduced (no WiFi, No SIP VOIP) E62, it seems some carriers in the UK, have been playing magician and are making the IP communications stack that makes VoIP calling possible over WiFi a tad invisible on the new Nokia N95.

More information can be found here. I'm not sure, but if there is a standard firmware version out there from Nokia, you can likely just reflash the phone, or if you want the benefits of VoIP, you can go out and buy an unlocked one and then just use your own SIM withut the hassles of a contract paid for phone.

For those people like me who use VoIP services on the Nokia N80-I and E61 from Truphone and GizmoProject, or for pals Luca who has set up Abbeynet or David Beckemeyer of PhoneGnome who has crafted his own settings on the N80-I the dual mode devices are a big deal and present a big opportunity for growth and options.

Given the flurry of WiFi cloud creation in London, first with the Thames being lit up with 802.11 access and now the City of London, I'd say there's something not quite cricket about this.

Side Note & Upfront disclosure: For the sake of transparency as always, my agency represents both Nokia on the NSeries blogger relations program and is now working with Truphone. I also personally have a longstanding relationship with David Beckemeyer of PhoneGnome and friendship with Michael Robertson of GizmoProject since his MP3.com era days so this is somewhat personal to me as I don't like to see creativity ever being stifled. Call it the having read the writings of Ayn Rand and being an Objectivist...or call it what you like, but I hate seeing attempts to stop great ideas from growing.

Comments

[Oliver Starr "stitch"]

Andy,

This is just another prime example of carriers behaving badly. It seems like the government sponsored pseudo monopolies can't manage to line their purses by offering a good service at a fair price and instead have to resort to false advertising (read the fine print for your "unlimited" data plan), anti-competitive behavior (cutting off the use of freeconference.com via mobile phones) and of course removing the advertised functions from phones.

I have a post on this topic over on Guidwire Connection (http://guidewireconnection.com/oliver-starr ) if you want more of my thoughts on the matter...

Oliver Starr

[Ram Fish]

Andy - completely agree. The operators both US and globally attempt to remove WiFi & VOIP are dangerous and anti-competetive behavior. Nokia's Multimedia group has been coming up with fantastic devices - and luckily it is mostly selling it outside of the operators channel - with the full capabilities enabled.

In the US, the recent FCC petition to apply the CarterFon ruling to wireless will ba great first step to changing this behavior.

[Chris Holland]

i'm really hoping for increased pervasiveness of wireless IP networks, WiFi, WiMax, WiWhatever, and the normal practice of exchanging SIP addresses within vCards/hCards with fellow humans, so "phone" manufacturers can start selling their devices directly to consumers who would have a wide array of reliable wireless IP networks to choose from, with ease.

This way we can all bypass phone carriers altogether and never have to deal with "crippled devices" ... ever ... again ...

Aaah, we can dream! :)