Edited by author 06-18-2003 05:31 AM
Thanks for posting that.

Incidentally, if you want to post comments, you can use standard HTML tags to mark your parts in Italic typescript if you like or even bold typeface if you prefer Or if that doesn't work for you, you could even try underlining the text if you want to emphasise something.

For example, <b>Here's some bold text</b>, or <u>Here's some underlined text</b>.

But please DON'T SHOUT!

:-)

Guy

FAO Guy Kewney

IM NOT GOING TO GET INTO A SLINGING MATCH WITH YOU SO I WONT POST ON THIS TOPIC AGAIN. I DIDNT INTEND TO RIDICULE YOU, I FELT YOU WERE BLAIMING MODACO RATHER UNFAIRLY, AFTER ALL THE MODACO FORUM IS PROVIDING ALOT OF HELP TO MANY PEOPLE WITH SPV'S. I ATTEMPTED TO CLARIFY POSTS YOU HAD MADE AS THEY DIDNT HAVE FULL TRUTHS. I HAVE DONE SO AGAIN BELOW. FIRST IS EXTRACTS FROM YOUR STATEMENT THEN MY BITS IN CAPS AFTER IT.

1) The Microsoft newsgroup is "synched" to the Modaco forum - and the newsgroup posting claims "ALSO" to have recieved the email. As the email has now been revealed as a hoax... that makes the poster a liar, because NOBODY recieved it. The spurious email was posted - in full - within a few minutes at both Modaco and on the Newsgroup - around 4.30pm on Friday 13th. So, if it DID start on the newsgroup, someone jumped the gun - claiming to "also have recieved" something not yet claimed in the other place.

I DONT KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF THIS TO ME IT SOUNDS LIKE A LEAK FROM O, BUT I DONT KNOW. EVEN IF BOTH WERE POSTED AT OR ABOUT THE SAME TIME WHY BLAME MODACO? YOU HAVE SAID YOURSELF IT WAS ON THE NEWSGROUP FIRST. MODACO AND THE NEWS GROUP TEND TO SHARE USERS, SO WHEN SOMEONE READS ON ONE IT TENDS TO GET TRANSFERED TO THE OTHER.

2) Orange allow people to "unlock their phones" in exchange for a FEE.

DEPENDS WHAT YOU MEAN UNLOCK. IF YOU MEAN UNLOCK TO ANY NETWORK, THEN YES YOU HAVE TO PAY. SOFTWARE UNLOCKING CAN BE DONE FOR NO FEE OVER THE ORANGE WEB SITE.


3) As recently as January this year, Orange were issuing "formal warnings" to tech support reps if they commended Modaco to customers. I know because in January I WAS a TSR, and I received such a formal warning.

MAYBE BUT IVE SERTANLY SPOKE TO PLENTY WHO SAY THEY PROMOTE MODACO. I KNOW MANY ORANGE STAFF USE MODACO TO (EXPECIALLY IN THE EARLY DAYS) AS MODACO USERS COULD SOLVE PROBLEMS CUSTOMER SUPPORT HADNT EVEN SEEN BEFORE.

4)Unless things have changed dramatically, the only Orange Website that is linked to Modaco is the English language section of Orange (Switzerland) SA's SPV "hints and tips" page. That certainly was the state of play in February - and in January Orange issued a press release condemning the availability of tutorials on how to "decertify" the SPV - they didn't mention Modaco by name, but everyone knew who they meant.

MODACO WAS NOT THE SOURCE FOR PHONE UNLOCKING NOR IS IT THE ONLY SITE THE INFORMATION IS AVAILIBLE FROM. ITS TRUE IT IS THE BIGGIST SMARTPHONE FORUM, BUT THAT’S BECAUSE THERE IS A WEALTH OF INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON IT TO SOLVE MANY PROBLEMS. AS I RECAL IT WAS A SWEEDISH GUY WHO FIRST FIGURED OUT HOW TO SOFTWARE UNLOCK THE SPV, AND THAT WAS PUBLISHED ON THE MICROSOFT NEWSGROUP LONG BEFORE MODACO AND THE NEWGROUP WERE SYNC'ED

ALSO AS I RECALL, THE NETWORK UNLOCK PROGRAM WAS FIRST POSTED ON A FRENCH WEB SITE, A WHILE BEFORE ANYONE ON MODACO PICKED UP ON IT.


At that time, telling a customer how to reset their SPV was grounds for *summary dismissal* by Orange - yet the information was freely available from the Modaco site.

NEVER HEARD THAT BEFORE, BUT FIND IT ANNOYING THAT ORANGE WOULD PREVENT PEOPLE TAKING ACTION TO SORT THERE PHONE, EXPECIALLY WHEN THE SPV IS SO PRONE TO GETTING ‘CLOGGED UP’ DUE TO THE OS AND THE FUNCTIONALITY.
 
Somehow... I don't think it's ME that's not in full possession of the facts.

THAT REMAINS TO BE SEEN IN MY OPINION.

FAO Ian.S
1) The Microsoft newsgroup is "synched" to the Modaco forum - and the newsgroup posting claims "ALSO" to have recieved the email. As the email has now been revealed as a hoax... that makes the poster a liar, because NOBODY recieved it. The spurious email was posted - in full - within a few minutes at both Modaco and on the Newsgroup - around 4.30pm on Friday 13th. So, if it DID start on the newsgroup, someone jumped the gun - claiming to "also have recieved" something not yet claimed in the other place.
2) Orange allow people to "unlock their phones" in exchange for a FEE. The ONLY UK telco to unlock phones at no charge is Virgin. Orange also require a payment for every month of unexpired contract. As contracts run for a year, there aren't any SPV's in the UK to which this does NOT apply.
3) As recently as January this year, Orange were issuing "formal warnings" to tech support reps if they commended Modaco to customers. I know because in January I WAS a TSR, and I received such a formal warning.
4)Unless things have changed dramatically, the only Orange Website that is linked to Modaco is the English language section of Orange (Switzerland) SA's SPV "hints and tips" page. That certainly was the state of play in February - and in January Orange issued a press release condemning the availability of tutorials on how to "decertify" the SPV - they didn't mention Modaco by name, but everyone knew who they meant. At that time, telling a customer how to reset their SPV was grounds for *summary dismissal* by Orange - yet the information was freely available from the Modaco site.

Somehow... I don't think it's ME that's not in full posession of the facts.

sorry for multi posts, im having server trouble today.

Yes, I've had the same statement - it's up now. Still doesn't prove that Orange isn't doing trials of a non-Microsoft smartphone. In fact, I pretty much guarantee it is. But Julian Hope seems not to be the guy who authorised that email.

My suspicion? He will be in charge of a Sybian smartphone trial, and the email was accidentally sent out when someone failed to cancel it - but that's just my suspicious mind!

FAO Ron Walker

I feel I should add light to some comments you have made.

Modaco wasn’t the original place that decertifying was published, it was actually in the Microsoft newsgroup, someone from there then posted it onto modaco.

Orange allow people to unlock there phones over there own web site for free, no need to register. although you do have to agree to the terms and conditions.

I was under the impression orange and Microsoft were supporters of modaco, and orange even have a link to the modaco web site on there own web site.

Whether there is a conspiracy or not I believe that is a matter for orange and modaco, not for those not if full possession of the facts.

Which in reading your comments i believe you definitely are not.

FAO Ron Walker

I feel I should add light to some comments you have made.

Modaco wasn’t the original place that decertifying was published, it was actually in the Microsoft newsgroup, someone from there then posted it onto modaco.

Orange allow people to unlock there phones over there own web site for free, no need to register. although you do have to agree to the terms and conditions.

I was under the impression orange and Microsoft were supporters of modaco, and orange even have a link to the modaco web site on there own web site.

Whether there is a conspiracy or not I believe that is a matter for orange and modaco, not for those not if full possession of the facts.

Which in reading your comments i believe you defiantly are not.

FAO Ron Walker

I feel I should add light to some comments you have made.

Modaco wasn’t the original place that decertifying was published, it was actually in the Microsoft newsgroup, someone from there then posted it onto modaco.

Orange allow people to unlock there phones over there own web site for free, no need to register. although you do have to agree to the terms and conditions.

I was under the impression orange and Microsoft were supporters of modaco, and orange even have a link to the modaco web site on there own web site.

Whether there is a conspiracy or not I believe that is a matter for orange and modaco, not for those not if full possession of the facts.

Which in reading your comments you are not.

Cut and pasted from Modaco:

"Received this from neil ashley at O.
"Hello.
I've received a number of emails over the past few days, presumably because Julian Hope's vacation message suggests contacting me in his absence. Unfortunately, this relates to something in which neither Julian nor myself have involvement. The following statement should clarify the situation;

A number of Orange customers have received an email which claims to be from Orange inviting them to participate in a trial of the new Orange SPV handset.

While this information appears to have been sent by the Orange trials team, it was not generated by Orange.

The next version of the SPV, the SPV E100 will be launched in the UK in July. All trials of this handset are now complete.

Orange very much regrets any disappointment caused to our customers by this misleading email and we are conducting a full investigation into its origin."

IP numbers and full details have been passed on to Orange by Modaco. Conclusion, someone somewhere's for the highjump. Nobody's confirming that this wasn;t "just a prank", but... they're not denying it either.

Maybe Julian had taken some time during his break to tell some of his mates about a really good trick... maybe he has some proposals to put forward at work about handsets or security for that matter which would be much better received after such an incident... Maybe he just didn't plan on his mates using him as the recipient at Orange...


who knows... but it does seems to be playing to Oranges benefit at the moment...

More info: it seems that the original hoaxer joined the Modaco forum on 13th June they did so under the name "SPVlover", and posted three messages - the original hoax email, another telling people to sign up, a third drawing attention to the mail in another thread, and UNDER ANOTHER NAME ("Chris D") repeated the scam through a newsgroup synched with Modaco, claiming to have "also recieved the same email". All in all, a very busy bunny around teatime on Friday, but also a VERY well planned, slick operation; quite the opposite of the usual hoax profile. This chap was clever, and reasonably well educated. He also looks to be a techie of some kind.

Modaco have been something of a thorn in Orange's paw for quite some time - while not mentioned by name, Orange have put out press releases denouncing release of instructions on how to "decertify" the phone (it's "locked" and should ONLY run Orange-approved and licensed software. Unlocked it'll run it approved or not)If you want to unlock or SIM unlock your SPV, Modaco has long been the place to look. And its membership is now 8000+ - more than 10% of all SPV users worldwide. So, I'm left wondering if this is more than a "jape"; could it be the act of an "Agent provocateur" to give Orange the excuse to take legal action?
Whoever it was, and whyever they did it... they seem to have been aware of Julian Hope's holiday schedule, and that he'd not be around to rubbish the hoax. How DID they know? Who HAS access to that kind of info?

Sounds like a disgruntled orange employee!

"Interesting about the GPRS price. I know I recommended people to sign up for it because of the low cost deal. Nobody actually complained to me! - I suppose, probably, because Orange sorted it out."

"Registering" a new phone is normally a fairly simple process. With the SPV however it required several different steps to be fed into a geriatric (DOS?) program written as a "stopgap solution" back when Orange had a million customers. The clerk needed to add GPRS, MMS and the "SPV Value Pack" each as a separate process, and some of those options are found buried deep in "nested menus". A significant proportion of the people tasked with the job never DID seem to find "SPV Value pack", and so customers that they'd registered got billed full whack at the "PAYU" rate (which I seem to recall was £10 per megabyte) When tghe bill arrived, they'd ring up to complain, and they'd get a refund. But in the early days, a significant proportion of calls relating to the SPV were down to things simply "not being switched on for that accound at the exchange." When someone asked WHY their phone wouldn't send MMS messages, you KNEW the answer even before you'd checked. Not a techie problem... but because the phone's a/c hadn't been "flagged" as MMS capable. Due to a screwup somewhere in the system, the registration software initially refused to believe that the SPV *WAS* MMS capable - and the error message had to be over-ridden. But I don't think anyone ever explained that to the registration people...

The original source of the email was the Modaco forum, where a new member (named "Mr Morris" in the mail) claimed to have received it - he also (in another post) exhorted people to "get their replies in fast", and planted a seed in another thread drawing peoples' attention to his original post. The thread has now been deleted in its entirety, so I conclude that you're correct - it HAS now been exposed as a hoax.

Question remains of motive. This was a VERY polished job. Hoaxes are usually badly spelled, ungrammatical, and refer to important officials who don't exist. This one was better spelled and more grammatical than GENUINE Orange output, and included authentic Orange "Boilerplate" text. And it not only referred to a genuine Orange Official, but seemed to be aware that he would be unavailable to expose the hoax for what it was. So, not the usual hoax profile. Was the target Orange? Was it a cruel prank played by a colleague on Julian Hope? Was it an attempt by an Orange employee to discredit Modaco?
WELL? Guy - you're the "investigative journalist"! We rely on you for answers!

Having spoken to orange business services who spoke to Jullian Hope, apparently his inbox is full of questionaires he knows nothing about. The handset exists but there are no plans for a public beta. Im waiting for a call back from my account manager.

You seem to be categorically certain that this IS a hoax - can we ask what makes you think so? I've seen the same email elsewhere. Julian Hope is alledgedly on holiday until 30th. If he is, then how do YOU know his opinions?