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BELLEVUE, Wash.—MinuteWatcher L.L.C. is accusing T-Mobile USA Inc. of blocking access to its MinuteWatcher service, which is designed to help carrier customers track their wireless usage.
According to MinuteWatcher, the company has been unable to contact T-Mobile USA’s servers since June 19. MinuteWatcher offers wireless users a free service that monitors current usage for which the customer has not yet been billed. The service contacts the carrier’s servers once a day and downloads usage information, the company said. The service then sends customers an e-mail on the status of their unbilled usage and a color-coded “forecast” of whether they will exceed their plan minutes by the end of the billing cycle. MinuteWatcher says the e-mails typically go out once or twice a week.
T-Mobile USA representatives were not immediately available to confirm MinuteWatcher’s claims. However, the carrier’s terms of use includes a reference to third-party access:
“With respect to your access to the http://my.t-mobile.com site, T-Mobile hereby specifically reserves the right (a) to limit the number of times you may log in to this site within a certain period of time and/or (b) to restrict your use of automated scripts, plug-ins, and/or other third-party devices to obtain information (e.g., unbilled usage data) from this site.”
MinuteWatcher claims the third-party section is newly added and that “these conditions serve primarily to prevent T-Mobile customers from proactively managing their cell phone bills and keeping their costs .”
T-Mobile USA already offers its customers three ways to check their usage. Customers can dial a short code and receive the information, call 611 from their wireless phone or log onto the T-Mobile Web site for current usage information.
