Word in the blogosphere is that T-Mobile is blocking Twitter for all customers... and of course, the customers aren't happy. Firstly, what could have caused this?

T-Mobile CLAIMS that Twitter isn't an authorized third party service, as noted below:

"T-Mobile would like to bring to your attention that the Terms and Conditions of service, to which you agreed at activation, indicate “… some Services are not available on third-party networks or while roaming. We may impose credit, usage, or other limits to Service, cancel or suspend Service, or block certain types of calls, messages, or sessions (such as international, 900, or 976 calls) at our discretion.” Therefore, T-Mobile is not in violation of any agreement by not providing service to Twitter. T-Mobile regrets any inconvenience, however please note that if you remain under contract and choose to cancel service, you will be responsible for the $200 early termination fee that would be assessed to the account at cancellation.”

Some believe that T-Mobile considers Twitter a small startup, and that's the reason why they're blocking the service. Sounds more like a cover-up for the truth.
However, my original thought was that Twitter caused a substantial traffic load. The passionate Twitter users would post an update of where they are and what they're doing every half hour. These passionate users are friends with hundreds of other Twitter users, so there are so many messages going back and forth. Over the course of several months, it has been adding up, and T-Mobile wants to save money from this overload.

So what does this mean to the company?

1) Bad: Passionate Twitter users aren't only go leave T-Mobile in favor of a better service, but they'll also make word known in the blogosphere that T-Mobile is anti third party services. There's an exponential negative effect here because T-Mobile loses customers while those customers prevent prospective customers from signing up with them. All of this for just a few cents saved from less traffic?

2) Maybe it was a good move, for all we know. Maybe there was some deep security threat, or the price of allowing Twitter users on the network was too high. Beats me.

Either way, it's important for big companies to keep in mind that any change they make, no matter how *minor* it may seem, may potentially hold a significant impact for the company, or more importantly, customer loyalty.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor.