November 03, 2006

E-mail and Cellular Carriers

Today, Google introduced a new downloadable Java program for accessing your Gmail from your mobile phone. Of course, it doesn't work on my T-Mobile based Treo 600 (even though I have both a Sun and IBM JVM on my phone) or on my wife's Verizon LG-VX8500. After wondering why, I went to the the Gmail Help Center and found this:

Note: The Gmail application doesn't currently work with T-Mobile USA or BREW-based carriers (e.g. Verizon, Alltel, U.S. Cellular).

If your carrier provides TCP/IP access, and your phone provides a JVM, why then does the carrier matter? How does the carrier impact whether or not the Gmail application works?

I'm confused...

Posted by rob at 09:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack