Bell gimping BlackBerry GPS service?

A rumour’s floating around that the speed of the built-in Maps application will be dummed down on Bell’s BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) handsets in order to make their pay service better by comparison. It’s not entirely unheard of for carriers to favour their private $10/month service to what’s already built into the device for free (except maybe wireless traffic costs for map data). BlackBerry maps might end up taking 2-10 minutes to get a satellite lock instead of the usual 15-20 seconds. That’s quite the difference, and will probably turn a lot of people off from using location-based services altogether.

Firstly, I hope the rumor’s totally bunk. Second, I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t. Third, if it isn’t, the practice better not spread to other Canadian carriers. RIM’s done a fine job loading up fully-functional features, but if service providers are just going to intercept it, it’s undoing all of that good work. Similar worries have been raised over Android; if the system is really that easy to change, then carriers will lock it down and limit services in a way that’s ultimately profitable for them. Sure, good for business, but bad for PR.

[via Howard Forums]