So… I’ve learned more about ports and mobile applications over the last 48 hours than… well, it’s been a lot! Regular visitors to the site have probably seen the comments and discussion about data ports when using the Infinite Mobile service.
We’ve spent a lot of time digging into this, and it touches a lot of departments, but we’ve got some answers, some fixes, opened some things up, and - most importantly - are completely open to continuing to improve this service based on your feedback.
High level, there was no plot to limit specific applications. The decisions we’ve made up until now were essentially for 3 reasons:
1. To differentiate between our two unlimited data plans (one is for “mobile internet” on your phone, and one is for laptops). For most customers, these are different uses and have different value.
2. To optimize the customer experience on each of those plans to best suit the vast majority of customers using them.
3. To protect our network. The reality is that we’re the first operator in Canada to launch unlimited data. There are stories from around the world about how this can negatively affect network integrity, security and capacity issues and that’s not good for us, or for our customers.
Those are all valid reasons for managing our ports and applications, but we also did miss some things and we focused on the “average” customer, rather than all of our customers. So we’ve made changes.
We’ve added real time video streaming (although the Technical guys told me I couldn’t ask how they did it!), SIP, VOIP, SSH, and VPN… in fact, most letters of the alphabet now are supported. However, we haven’t been able to get video streaming to work on the BlackBerry Bold 9700. We’re still working on that one, and we’ll let you know when it happens.
What does the updated Infinite Mobile service look like? It’s essentially for people using their mobile phone to access the internet. That means that it’s optimized for mobile applications, mobile websites/internet and mobile email.
Here’s the full list (get even more detail in our FAQs):
While there are new mobile applications all of the time, we’re pretty confident that they’ll work with what we’ve got, and – if not – we’ll fix it. Just let us know!
For our Infinite Laptop service, it should be identical to the access you’d get whether through a WiFi connection, DSL, or cable connection, at home or at work. It’s optimized for people who are using it for laptop access including P2P (not mobile applications & mobile websites).
We’ve spent the last two days confirming this information, making additions and fixes, and re-testing these applications and services across all of our handsets (and we’ve been drinking lots of coffee)! This isn’t everything, and we know it will evolve, so please continue the conversation and let us know how it’s working.
Thanks again for all of your passion and input!
Chris
THANK YOU!!!! This is an amazing venue for conversation. A model for corporate-community relationships in Canada. I will re-test my N900 at your Bramalea store, and hopefully be a customer shortly after. Again, THANK YOU for listening.
lol i like this but all ports should be opened cause example half my ssh ports are from 100-9500.... I think you guys should enable all ports. At&T, tmobile, and other american companies have no problems enabling all ports so why should you. Anyways I can still use megaupload so that would be good.
Wow, amazing. It did seem for a while that these data issues were falling on deaf ears but I'm impressed with the 3 week turnaround.
Can someone confirm how these new open ports are working on an Android phone? If gmail, gchat, and all the other background services are working, I'm going to get ready to cancel my Rogers account.
Thank you. I hope that Droidhacker is happy with this LOL. Again thank you
Great post and great job working on fixing the problems. I agree that all ports should be open because some will dump their home internet and tether.
One of the other posts stated expansion. It was a shame that all the comments took away from your post but it get a problem solved. Your current home area has kept a lot of people away and still no time line of cities coming on board.
Even though I am back with Rogers for 3 more years, I still have another line just waiting to be ported to Wind.
Bring Wind to Lindsay/Peterborough Chris...we're waiting.
Chris, I don't know why you need to optimize for phone vs laptop (usb stick access). As far as tethering goes, we should be able to have same access as usb stick internet. Can you get your techies to explain why the differentiation between 2 services that ideally should be identical?
Thanks Chris...never doubted it for a moment...kind of makes some individuals look like fools.Now...bring on the new phones...Yippie!
Great news.
Thank you
I hear you Chris with all the letters of the alphabet now being supported LOL. That's exactly how I felt! It's good that the techies will now enjoy their service. Thanks for working on that.
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