It appears that beta units of Dell Streaks are being blocked by AT&T…
It appears that AT&T is blocking the IMEI numbers of beta units of Dell Streaks in US. MoDaCo’s forum has claimed that they have been told by Dell of AT&T being behind this all.however there has not come any official word from the wireless carrier over the matter. It is reported that all the data is blocked while the calls are being routed back to AT&T customer service over beta testers of the device.
If these new reports coming out of the MoDaCo forums indicates anything (and we’re sure it does), it looks like those same test units are now being blocked from AT&T’s network. How? According to the reports, it looks to be an IMEI block, as all calls being made from the test Streaks are being routed to AT&T customer service, and all data on EDGE or 3G is completely blocked.
There’s a fascinating discussion going on over in MoDaCo’s forums today suggesting that Dell Streak units that were given out recently as part of the company’s US beta test in and around Austin, Texas are no longer functioning on AT&T, the result of an apparent IMEI block; voice calls placed from the devices all get re-routed to AT&T customer service, and 2G / 3G data doesn’t work at all. Our understanding is that beta testers were allowed to keep their units after the conclusion of the test period.
One user has had luck with data by using the iPad’s APN and plan settings, but otherwise, there seems to be a bit of frustration going around. We’ve reached out to AT&T to figure out what’s going on; we’ll let you know when we have more.
We’ve had at least one buyer of a beta unit write in to tell us that his Streak is still functional, so it seems that the IMEIs haven’t been blocked across the board.
Resources :gadgetsnreviews.com,slashgear.com,engadget.com
This is ridiculous. Why is dell shutting these down? Is this even legal? Will there be a class action lawsuit against Dell/AT&T over this?
We fulfilled our end of the bargain through the Beta Test. I find it ridiculous that Dell would do this.