T-Mobile Gives In

T-Mobile USA, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG, was the last of the four major cellphone carriers to preserve a semblance of its customers' civil liberties. When they acquired VoiceStream in 2001, they capitulated to the demands of the Department of Justice and the FBI for lawful intercept points in their equipment. While this wasn't ideal, it was a compromise given the circumstances and the important thing was that it extended to LAWFUL intercept only. After 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security never received the kind of access they desired to T-Mobile's network...but since what they were seeking was illegal anyway, there wasn't much they could do about it. In 2007, T-Mobile purchased the rights to airwaves from the FCC to deliver new, broadband wireless services to its customers. They spent about 3 BILLION dollars on these airwaves. However, the government decided to withhold those airwaves from T-Mobile because it would not grant carte blanche access to its customers' private data. This set T-Mobile back an entire year as they tried everything to get the government to let go of the spectrum, even offering $50 million in bribe money at one point. The government wouldn't budge. T-Mobile decided to acquire a small carrier in the southeast US, SunCom Wireless, earlier in 2007. The government withheld final approval, again because T-Mobile would not let the privacy of its customers go. This is a rare example of a corporation making visible sacrifice on behalf of the people it serves, protecting them from a government flush with illegally gained power.

That is, until today. Finally, given great financial pressure from shareholders in Deutsche Telekom as well as the lagging status of its cellular network in the US, the company gave the Department of Homeland Security the blanket access it had so long desired. Watch what you say.

Sources:
BetaNews article
CNet article