Carriers / MNOs: I Don't Want Your Stuff On My (Phone, PC)

Three years ago I posed a note criticizing the practices by hardware PC vendors of installing a lot of unwanted software on their brand new computers. These practices peaked - I think - with Windows Vista and are now declining. Or at least this is my impression. Most of my new computers, with the exception of the Nokia Booklet 3G laptop, happen to be iMacs. The iMacs come very clean, with no third party trial versions at all (may be too many MacOS applications installed). As I am not very productive with the MacOS, I install Windows 7 on all of them. And Because I use genuine install distributions from Microsoft, I do not get any third party glut either.

But even with the Nokia laptop, things have not been bad. It came preloaded with Windows 7 Starter, later on I was upgrading it to SSD storage and I upgraded the OS to a higher version. But it definitely was not populated with unwanted applications, bogging down the machine.

What was even more striking with the Nokia, was the absence of any "special" application for mobile (3G) Internet connectivity. I had had been used to USB modems sold by MNOs. Each modem was coming with a SIM card and with compulsory setup procedure, introducing (as it turns out - absolutely unnecessary) a special application for invoking the mobile Internet connection. No such thing with the Nokia. Actually, it was the time when for the first time then I saw Windows can dial to the Internet on its own. I popped in my SIM card, Windows asked for the PIN, and voila... "connected", it announced, flashing the familiar wireless signal icon in the device tray. Pretty soon I forgot the whole thing, as the connection has been working perfectly since then. Withiout any special "helper" software from my Mobilke Network Operator.

And recently a friend of mine called crying for help. "My fantastic new Windows 7 laptop is doing weird things", she said. "It hangs, it refuses to shut down properly and is not reliable anymore". Windows 7 does not behave this way on its own. So I questioned her about what she had installed before the laptop went haywire. "Nothing" was the answer. "Only the mobile Internet modem"... Suddenly I recalled the long struggles I used to have with mobile Internet modems and especially the "dialer" applications provided by the MNOs. What a piece of rubbish these applications usually are... I found one even installing the WinPCAP packet capture driver. Very often they are very badly written, not behaving correctly on events like suspend or hibernate. Very often they are not tested with newer OS versions. Very often they even fail to install, converting happy subscribers (who decided to buy modems) into unhappy subscribers (who have huge issues with their laptops after installing the modems). I have gathered a lot of statistics to prove that. Try to Google "virgin broadband2go problems" - my note describing the solution is ranked four worldwide, and I have hundreds of hits every week. Reading the comments I can hear and feel the pains cried by the subscribers. Pains caused by mediocre quality of the application, which is completely unnecessary, as it duplicates what the OS already can do on its own.

But MNOs do this for a reason. They think they give you an additional "value". The value-added has been their strategy for years. So in their applications they give you shortcuts to connect and disconnect actions. They let you define a shortcut to your email client. And your Web browser. And your IM application. As if it was THEM who bring you all those features. Pathetic! The truth is different. We no longer need that. We no longer want that. Carriers, go away with your practices. Instead, learn how to seamlessly integrate your software with the platforms it is designed to work with.

Dear MNOs, listen: I don't Want Your Stuff On My PC. Nor on my smartphone. All I want from you is a seamless, no bells-and-whistles, dumb connection to the Internet. Those, who understand this, will be the winners. The rest will figure it out in the end (at least I hope so...).