Saw this in the comments section on the main page here, found it interesting:
Grain of salt, but...
By: DougOfDoom | Date: Sun, 07/12/2009 - 09:34 | reply
When I bought my Tour this morning, and I was waiting for the Verizon sales guy to activate it, he mentioned that it had WiFi. I asked, doesn't Verizon disable WiFi on all its devices? His response was basically, well, it's there. When activation was completed, it was gone. I never actually saw it myself. But it sounds like maybe the hardware is there, waiting for an app to hack through.
If you can somehow get the
By: Yandar | Date: Sun, 07/12/2009 - 16:13 | reply
If you can somehow get the service books for WiFi, from any source, it may unlock it if the hardware is there. According to my UK Bold you will need:
WiFi TCP/IP Browser [BrowserConfig]
WiFi Transport [WPTCP]
I have no idea if it would work. But it may be worth a try.
Is it possible that WiFi is actually built into the tour but is being disabled by VZW? Or was the sales guy just completely off base?
that'd be a **** move on verizon's part but i could somewhat see it happening, and yet i couldnt imagine it happening in a million years...i guess we just gotta wait till someone takes the thing apart to tell
that'd be a **** move on verizon's part but i could somewhat see it happening, and yet i couldnt imagine it happening in a million years...i guess we just gotta wait till someone takes the thing apart to tell
I agree that would be some messed up crap from verizon if the tour did in fact have the wifi capability... I'm sure we will find out soon if it indeed does have wifi
I remember seeing a thread here where a member was testing a pre release device and they mentioned that it had wifi but didn't know if it would be available on RTM devices. I'll have to see if I can find it again.
Hmmm...that is interesting. They could unlock it with an update in the future similar to when the Curve GPS was unlocked for BB maps in an OS update. Who's gonna be the first to take their Tour apart and tell us if they see what may be a wifi chip??? LoL
I recently read an article in Yahoo News' tech section about how Sprint and Verizon will now be pushing to activate WiFi on all their phones in order to help unload some of the traffic on their own networks.
And, yes...considering Verizon used to disable the internal GPS on the Curves, I would not be surprised that WiFi is built into the phone but is disabled by Verizon (and Sprint).
That Verizon tech was probably telling you the truth.
Sprint and Verizon disabled the wifi chipset, only for them to re-release the phone with wifi and a few upgraded specs? It doesn't have the chip anymore.
