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Thursday September 17, 2009
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 Ah, Zer01. What are we to make of you? A company of mysterious provenance, Zer01 Mobile exploded onto the scene in March claiming to offer unlimited voice-over-IP and 3G data plans for $70/month using a unique business model. They would sign interconnect agreements as if they were a wireless carrier, but they wouldn't run any wireless network of their own; essentially, they'd always be roaming. Once Zer01 data hit AT&T and T-Mobile towers it would drop down to Zer01's own Internet backbone.
Initially, they said they'd sell their service directly. Then they contracted with a distributor called Buzzirk Mobile, which was associated with a guy on probation for securities fraud and who was accused of running a pyramid scheme.
After a lot of negative press, Zer01 cut off that relationship and now they say they're going to try to sell a white-label service through big-box retail stores, who would brand the mobile service under their own names.
Zer01 showed off a T-Mobile HTC Touch Pro2 smartphone running their custom software (shown at left) at the ShowStoppers event last night, which they said was connecting calls using their VOIP service, but frankly there was no way to tell; it connected calls, but it was impossible to say whether they were VOIP calls or just T-Mobile phone calls.
Zer01 isn't the first company to founder on the shoals of the US wireless industry. Hop-On has appeared at cell-phone trade shows for years without actually producing any retail phones that I've ever seen. Zzzphone at one point said they'd sell custom-built Chinese phones to Americans for cheap; they have since vanished. And Logic Wireless showed off a celebrated projector-phone at a trade show earlier this year, but to call it "hard to find" would be an understatement.
Is Zer01 for real? We're still on the fence. Time will tell.
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September 17, 2009 4:47 PM
"Zer01 showed off a T-Mobile HTC Touch Pro2 smartphone"
Where ? At what show ?
September 17, 2009 4:49 PM
Showed off where? When? How would a person actually verify how the phone is connecting calls? Did the phone say it was using T-Mobile's network? T-Mobile never explicity denied that they had any agreement with T-Mobile. This article is rather lacking in details.
September 17, 2009 5:07 PM
It was at the ShowStoppers press event last night.
I used the phone to call two different numbers, and it connected the calls and provided audio. So it was connecting calls. The phone had "T-Mobile" painted on the bezel and displayed "T-Mobile" in its status bar, in the area where it usually shows what network it's on. Zer01 also showed us a SIM card which I put in an unlocked Nokia E71, and that phone then registered on the T-Mobile network.
In other words, it looked and acted exactly like a T-Mobile branded phone with a skin on the main menu and dialer software; it was impossible to tell whether Zer01 was actually providing any technology that wasn't cosmetic.
September 17, 2009 5:47 PM
So, Sasha, you were unable to tell if it was a regular T-Mobile voice call, or a Zer01 VOIP call.
That could be good or bad, but with Zer01 current credibility, their demo is still unconvincing.
September 17, 2009 5:55 PM
Zer01 promised Laptop Mag, and IDC to provide them with Zer01 phones as soon they had the SIM cards "defragged".
Did you give your name to be on the List to receive a Zer01 phone for a test drive ? At $70 a month (retail) that would be very, very cheap publicity.
If they had a phone that works.
September 18, 2009 1:39 PM
I didn't know SIM cards took so long to "defrag". This is complete BS, a SIM card is no more difficult to format than any other flash memory card. He should have already had dozens of SIM cards out to op-ed peer review. Decide for yourself, but, I see no reason to believe this is anything but a hoax to be used to further make the impression he is not/has not committed fraud. This POS service will never see the light of day.
September 18, 2009 3:14 PM
Where did Zer01 say the cards needed to be "defragged"? I must have missed that. I did see where Buzzirk reps said that, but Zer01 seems to have dropped their contract with Buzzirk because of false claims that Buzzirk reps were making.
I'm just trying to wade through the claims of "Zer01 said XX" when it was actually Buzzirk. Zer01 did apparently promise Laptop phones to test, and they've definately missed that date, but I didn't see anywhere that Zer01 has said the needed to be "defragged" as the reason.
As to fraud? Has Zer01 (not Buzzirk) collected any money from customers and not delivered? Still, to this date, all I see is yet another company that promised to have a product ready to go by a certain date, and missed their target by an increasingly wide margin.
September 18, 2009 3:38 PM
Thanks,i been trying to get the Zero1 product for months.
September 19, 2009 11:27 AM
The defrag thing was just another explanation to explain the delay. Ben P was on a few of the conference calls and never dismissed anything until people with knowledge of the industry started to take a closer look at the concept and business model.
Zer01's reputation is just that.. Zero.. On their own website.. they stated they had the technology up and running a couple of years ago, this was of course before they stripped their website bare.
On the Zer01 website. It shows phones connected to a "Zer01" carrier.. yet no one other than the person that did the photoshop work has actually seen it.
September 19, 2009 8:59 PM
Don't everyone get too hung up on demanding to see a working phone. Anyone can make a VoIP call, and it wouldn't take much to make VoIP software, or a dedicated or dual-purpose VoIP phone, bearing one's own logo. Both already exist, and the demonstration of such a device does not constitute evidence of increased or unlimited bandwidth.
The critical question is whether Zer01 has an actual sustainable business plan based on technology which works as they say it will. Having seen this guy explain it in an interview, I would say that they do not. His explanation of his own service's advantage over normal carriers, and how he is going to work around the limited bandwidth every carrier faces, is unintelligible.