Unlimited long distance $24.99/mo
March 7, 2005 5:40 PM PST
Danger outage turns Sidekicks into just phones
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The severity of the issues varied widely among users, with some consumers reporting that they had been without service for more than 24 hours, while others reported no issues, according to a review of more than 150 posts to a Sidekick and Sidekick 2 forum. Danger, the creator of the Sidekick devices and the company that maintains the service for carrier T-Mobile USA, gave few details of the problem.
"This morning, some users may experience degradation in service (e.g., connection and email delay) which is currently being resolved by Danger engineers," a Danger representative wrote in a a posting to Hiptop.com, a company-owned forum for Sidekick customers.
Neither Danger nor T-Mobile responded to requests for comment.
The outages are the latest issues plaguing the mobile phone and Internet services provided by Danger and T-Mobile. Both companies have come under scrutiny as the means by which online thieves managed to steal the addresses, e-mail messages and images from the Sidekick of celebrity heiress Paris Hilton last year, an incident that came to light last month. The recent appearance on the Internet of a private sex video of Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst and an ex-girlfriend--allegedly stolen from Durst's PC--has also been linked to the same group.
Whether the outage is part of an attack or the result of technical glitches is unknown.
Most customers did not seem to care about the distinction. In a flurry of posts, angered users took issue with Danger's characterization of the outage as a "degradation in service" and accused the company of downplaying the seriousness of the problems.
"I'm going on 48 hours down-time," wrote one customer in a post to the forum. "I use this device as a primary mail client. Not having it is killing me. I pay for QoS (quality of service), and expect it."
In addition, some customers complained that they could not connect to Danger's server, which provides customers with Web access to their Sidekick data. CNET News.com confirmed that the company's Desktop Interface was down much of Monday.
Danger updated users in the past month with patches for the device's operating system and its wireless networking capability. Some customers theorized that the two software updates, which several posters had just received over the network last weekend, were the cause of the outage.
Whatever the reason, the outage had customers frustrated with the Sidekick devices and the service.
"As for Danger...they seriously need to get their act together," stated another customer on the Hiptop forum. "I understand an outage lasting a couple hours, but an outage lasting longer than 24 hours is completely unacceptable."
See more CNET content tagged:
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The device is amazing, I've used a wide range of PDAs and the Sidekick/Hiptop just passes all with it's great features and easy-to-use platform.
Even with a day of down time, T-mobile was offering a $5 credit while a month of unlimited service only costs $30.
DON'T let this article fool you, outages are VERY rare and they only occur when services are being improved.
The device is amazing, I've used a wide range of PDAs and the Sidekick/Hiptop just passes all with it's great features and easy-to-use platform.
Even with a day of down time, T-mobile was offering a $5 credit while a month of unlimited service only costs $30.
DON'T let this article fool you, outages are VERY rare and they only occur when services are being improved.
not hours, there is a serious problem. This is not the first or the
last outage, though one of the best - no access to your data
through the website is a new twist.
If a cellphone service went dead for two days straight how long
would that company be in business?
At least SMS still works, now I need to see if Tmobile providers an email to SMS service for its customers. That would solve my problem. Yeah web browser doesn't work, pretty upsetting, but I need the piece of crap to page me when a server is down.
That is the #1 reason for me buying this phone. #2 was browing, #3 was SSH, then IMs then finally its phone functionality.
Khalid
to sit down and use our backups. I work 55 hours per week,
additional 2 hours per day for travel, and an additional 2-3 for
my own development task (open source projects etc.) There
simply isnt time. With the sidekick I can read email on the way
to work, while walking, excersizing, etc. Yes, it is a
convenience, but one that you certainly become acustom to.
You are obviously NOT a sidekick customer. The problem most
of us sidekick users have is that we PAY for this service. The
tmobile sidekick service cost 20 per month alone, add to that
our phone service, most sidekick users pay upwards of $80.00 a
month (that is what I pay). We gladly pay this amount to tmobile
because we need their service. If we didnt, we certainly wouldnt
waste $20.00 a month on it. Many of us use tmobile email as
our primary acount, so when we loose all access we could be
missing valuable emails. You cannot back up that service, since
for many of us this is our way of keeping out of trouble (using
tmobile is much more reliable than using our own email servers,
etc. for my I used it as primary since my email server took a dive
in January). Anyways, its easy for people who dont use this
service to make it sound like anyone who complains is a whiny
child.
not hours, there is a serious problem. This is not the first or the
last outage, though one of the best - no access to your data
through the website is a new twist.
If a cellphone service went dead for two days straight how long
would that company be in business?
At least SMS still works, now I need to see if Tmobile providers an email to SMS service for its customers. That would solve my problem. Yeah web browser doesn't work, pretty upsetting, but I need the piece of crap to page me when a server is down.
That is the #1 reason for me buying this phone. #2 was browing, #3 was SSH, then IMs then finally its phone functionality.
Khalid
to sit down and use our backups. I work 55 hours per week,
additional 2 hours per day for travel, and an additional 2-3 for
my own development task (open source projects etc.) There
simply isnt time. With the sidekick I can read email on the way
to work, while walking, excersizing, etc. Yes, it is a
convenience, but one that you certainly become acustom to.
You are obviously NOT a sidekick customer. The problem most
of us sidekick users have is that we PAY for this service. The
tmobile sidekick service cost 20 per month alone, add to that
our phone service, most sidekick users pay upwards of $80.00 a
month (that is what I pay). We gladly pay this amount to tmobile
because we need their service. If we didnt, we certainly wouldnt
waste $20.00 a month on it. Many of us use tmobile email as
our primary acount, so when we loose all access we could be
missing valuable emails. You cannot back up that service, since
for many of us this is our way of keeping out of trouble (using
tmobile is much more reliable than using our own email servers,
etc. for my I used it as primary since my email server took a dive
in January). Anyways, its easy for people who dont use this
service to make it sound like anyone who complains is a whiny
child.
GET AWAY WITH IT!*
Get away with what? Oh yeah, peeing in peoples cheerios for as long as they will let you.
*the actual official HipTop trademark
Of course, they could try and use real world analogies. How about this:
Our encyclopedia of information has had all of its pages glued together. Not only that, but you are trying to look at the encyclopedia through a telescope looking through a dirty window. When we unglue the pages of the encyclopedia and clean the window, you will have your service back.
GET AWAY WITH IT!*
Get away with what? Oh yeah, peeing in peoples cheerios for as long as they will let you.
*the actual official HipTop trademark
Of course, they could try and use real world analogies. How about this:
Our encyclopedia of information has had all of its pages glued together. Not only that, but you are trying to look at the encyclopedia through a telescope looking through a dirty window. When we unglue the pages of the encyclopedia and clean the window, you will have your service back.
Services will return to there normal fast EXCELLENT condition.
A day of of outage and people panic, that shows how great the device is, they miss it that much.
Services will return to there normal fast EXCELLENT condition.
A day of of outage and people panic, that shows how great the device is, they miss it that much.
Seriously though. How many customers are managed by the Danger back end? The number probably just isn't that big. Creating and operating databases of the size they would need is just not so far out of the norm that they should be having all this trouble. And yes I've managed such sized databases.
As I've been a customer for several years, I've began to wonder just what could be going on at danger.
The real clue is "Why hasn't danger pressed more into the business market?"
Danger is usually marketing after a bunch of kids from what I can tell.
I imagine the business community would be much less tolerant of the outages.
The observable lack of danger's interest in the lucrative business market leads me to surmise that they must be aware of the short comings of there technology, and are trying to make what money that can off the less "discerning", while, presumedly, they fix things.
Then I return to the question of why don't they fix it? And I am invariably faced with the answer: "They don't know how".
Seriously though. How many customers are managed by the Danger back end? The number probably just isn't that big. Creating and operating databases of the size they would need is just not so far out of the norm that they should be having all this trouble. And yes I've managed such sized databases.
As I've been a customer for several years, I've began to wonder just what could be going on at danger.
The real clue is "Why hasn't danger pressed more into the business market?"
Danger is usually marketing after a bunch of kids from what I can tell.
I imagine the business community would be much less tolerant of the outages.
The observable lack of danger's interest in the lucrative business market leads me to surmise that they must be aware of the short comings of there technology, and are trying to make what money that can off the less "discerning", while, presumedly, they fix things.
Then I return to the question of why don't they fix it? And I am invariably faced with the answer: "They don't know how".
And if these services are SO important to your business and/or personal life, HAVE A BACKUP METHOD IN PLACE TO GET AT THE DATA. If you're a technical person, this is a no brainer. If you're not, get your IT staff or hire a consultant to make your data redundant.
- You gotta be kiddin!
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by
March 8, 2005 1:09 PM PST
- Are you kidding? Get a back up? When you buy a brand-new car and 2 days later it just completely breaks down because of a defect from the dealer / manufacture, are you just gonna go buy another brand new car for backup? I dont think so. We as customers pay for things to WORK.
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by thenet411
March 8, 2005 3:16 PM PST
- No one seems to get my original point. Of course you pay for a service to work. Otherwise, what is the point? But my point is that you have to expect some issues with a young, feature rich service. True, none of us signed up to be a beta test group. But, if you understand the technical development process, you would know that you can never have a full scale test without going live. The amount of people needed for a full scale test is just not feasible. Look at Google. Their GMail service is an example for the whole world to follow. When you have a large service that you want to test, start with a few people. Look for issues. Then, add more. Look for issues. And so on. Notice that you have to be invited to join GMail? Absolutely incredible idea on the part of Google.
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See all 76 Comments >>And if these services are SO important to your business and/or personal life, HAVE A BACKUP METHOD IN PLACE TO GET AT THE DATA. If you're a technical person, this is a no brainer. If you're not, get your IT staff or hire a consultant to make your data redundant.