How Reliance crippled Nokia 6255

I think network operators enjoy unfair and unnecessary privileges over the equipment we use to access their networks. Operators like Vodaphone dictate what features a phone should have. I think the operator should not have much to do with the device that accesses their network. It should be like in PCs. How much does your ISP dictate the hardware or software specs of your computer? Till now I thought that this is not as much of a problem here in India as it is in Europe and Japan. But recently my views changed when Sachin bought a new Nokia 6255 from Reliance. It is a Series 40 Symbian phone and supports Java applications. But he quickly realized that Reliance has disabled the installation of Java (J2ME) applications because the only way that Reliance wants you to get new applications is through their service called R World. So he could not do it through Nokia PC Suite which said “No supported phone is connected” when it came to installing J2ME applications. Even if he copied the jar/jad installer files to the phone, the phone would not recognize the file format (other series 40 phones recognize it and I think Reliance has a hand in this too) After spending a lot of time on the forums he realized that he needs a third party application MobiMB to get going. But there were some other finer details he had to take care of before he could actually install J2ME applications. Now Sachin is a geek and he could work it out. I’m not so sure about an average user. I think the network operator does not have the right to deprive the user of the features that are available in the device. The user has paid for those features and has the right to use them effectively. In case you have a Reliance Nokia 6255 and want to get in touch with Sachin to sort all this out the easy way, drop me a mail. I don't want to add to his spam count by posting his email id here.