T-Mobile (temporarily) halts Web 2.0rhea

Dry heaving Twitterites

By Cade Metz in Mountain View • Get more from this author

Posted in Mobile, 19th December 2007 01:46 GMT

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For several days, many Twitter users in the US were unable to digitally vomit with their T-Mobile phones.

Last week, as one loyal Reg reader points out, an army of Twitterers were unable to satisfy their Web 2.0 fix when their T-Mobile phones wouldn't let them post mini-messages to their "micro-blogs" via SMS. Naturally, one micro-blogger accused T-Mobile of violating net neutrality.

"For the last few days I have been unable to send SMS messages to the Twitter service from my T-Mobile cell phone. This evening I decided that enough was enough and I called T-Mobile," he wrote. "Their official response was that T-Mobile does not support third-party messaging services and the reason why I am all of a sudden unable to send messages to the Twitter service is because their system 'caught up to the bug.'

"I specifically asked if this meant I should expect to never be able to send to Twitter again and the answer was 'yes.'"

But service has now been restored. And T-Mobile insists that it never intended to suppress digital vomiting. "Twitter users are welcome to stay connected through T-Mobile service," reads a canned statement from the company. "Rumors that T-Mobile blocks the service are false. T-Mobile confirmed with Twitter that there was a technical issue between the two companies’ systems that temporarily prevented some customers from utilizing the service this past weekend. That issue has since been resolved and the companies are working to prevent such incidents from re-occurring."

We asked Twitter if this is indeed the case, but we've yet to hear back. Regardless, T-Mobilers are now free to continue micro-blogging. ®

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