Just after few days of its launch T-Mobile USA abruptly suspended its newest product ‘Bobsled,’ which was a free Facebook-integrated voice calling service. It did not even have the necessary requirement to have a T-Mobile account for either users and lets any Facebook users to download the app which enables them to call all their online Facebook friends. The launch date for this unique service was on 20th April, 2011.
Image via Wikipedia And just this Tuesday on 26th April 26, 2011, T-Mobile USA issued a notification to all of its users via a post on their Facebook page announcing that they are suspending Bobsled with immediate effect. The official post read: "We are voluntarily and temporarily suspending the Bobsled service as we work with our partners at Facebook to address their design questions related to differentiating the Bobsled experience from Facebook's own created properties. We apologize for this temporary disruption and are looking forward to expanding the service with other features soon."
Bobsled was an extremely user-friendly and easy-to-install service which lets the user Facebook almost any friend who would just require having a computer along with the necessary microphone, speakers or just a headset. Whereas, the receiver could attend the call without even having the compulsion have the app installed on their computer. Furthermore, its features also let the caller to leave either of a private or public voicemail message too. At the launch and even afterwards until the announcement of suspension, T-Mobile had a blunt vision for future developments, it had all the intentions to expand their services through smartphone and tablet apps along with the capability to make VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) calls directed to ordinary cellular mobile phones and landline numbers within the United States.
However, all these aims and objects seem very farfetched now, as in a reply to a general query on its Facebook page, the Bobsled team wrote that it does not have any kind of approximate timing for how long will the service remain suspended and when may it actually return to normal functions, but they did promised to keep the users posted in case of any progress in this regard.
It is still ambiguous as to how successful this service has been, as it was only online for a short time and it could not be calculated how many Facebook users did actually downloaded the Bobsled app.
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