engadget.com — To all you Cingular Pay-As-You-Go users, from now 'til 90 more days, your cell will be either be disconnected or charged 2.5 cents PER MINUTE, because a federal judge found Cingular to be infringing a patent under Freedom Wireless.
Oct 19, 2005 View in Crawl 4
leonakenOct 19, 2005
NO. BCGI was found to infringe on Freedom Wireless's patent. Becuase Cingular and Sprint-Nextel use BCGI for their pay-as-you-go services, they will phase out these offerings.Yes, it's a tragic loss for advancement.
mikemacmanOct 19, 2005
People are digging this because its another example of a STUPID patent that is causing major lawsuits and problems. This companies patent is on using a database to determine if a pay as you go cell phone user has enough minutes left to make a phone call. Wow, good thing they patented this rocket science. How else would you do it? Have a monkey keep track of how many minuntes each user has left?It's crap like this that makes me embarrassed to be American. From <a class="user" href="http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2005/07/05/business_methods_patents_raise_the_stakes/">http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2005/07/05/business_methods_patents_raise_the_stakes/</a>"Freedom Wireless, a four-person company, has never set up an actual business serving customers; it seeks royalties from companies like BCGI, Verizon Wireless, and Nextel Communications Inc. At the heart of Freedom's 1996 patent is the idea of using a computer to match a cellphone number with a database showing how many paid-up minutes the cellphone owner has, then deciding whether to complete a call."I guess no ones ever thought up that particular use for a database before...
gambl0rOct 19, 2005
do you people even read the posts you're linking to before putting them up on digg? This effects basically no one and the title is incredibly misleading.
g_razorOct 19, 2005
Actually, it would be cheaper for Cingular to send free phones to all the TDMA subscribers rather than pay the 2.5 cents per minute....
mikemacmanOct 19, 2005
Mikezila: "Is it just me, or is 2.5 cents a minute one hell of a damn deal?"You didn't read the article. They can't take on new customers, they have 90 days to shutdown and during those 90 days they must pay 2.5 cents / minute to "Freedom Wireless". They are basically forced to shut down.
mikemacmanOct 19, 2005
ProAm500: They are forced to shutdown in 90 days. How is the title overdramtizing this?
friedgeekOct 19, 2005
No digg. Misleading
mzb3liz3Apr 10, 2006
ok it sux but..................... i got 1 question some1 pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease help me cuz i dont really know if this effects ma phone or not cuz mime iz prepaid (cingular) and i juz got it & iz it only gon b 2.5 cents a min or 12.5 afta the 2.5 cents add on ne 1 think they can answer ma questions let a girl know mz_b3liz3@yahoo.com