Over the last year or so there has been plenty of frustration directed at the carriers, some of whom are clearly stonewalling support for Google’s Wallet app. While T-Mobile has long stonewalled support for Google’s Wallet service, they’ve never really come out and said it’s directly because of their support for Project ISIS…until now. All it took was a simple tweet from a customer to the main @tmobile Twitter account asking why Google Wallet doesn’t work on the Note II. T-Mobile’s response?

“We’re supporting ISIS, the wireless payment standard for mobile devices.”

Which is great, except I don’t remember ISIS actually being dubbed the mobile payment “standard.” In fact, I don’t recall any of the mobile payment services out there being labeled as the de facto industry “standard.”

All in all it seems that both Verizon and T-Mobile are keeping Google Wallet out of their hair because of their support for ISIS. Now, I get it, it’s a business and they can run their business how they see fit, but let’s not act like no other service is available or that the customer isn’t getting the short end.

Sure, you can side-load Google Wallet, but why have to go through the extra step? Why can’t we just have the choice and let the services themselves battle it out for our business? The bottom line is that once again these behemoth carriers are less concerned about customers and more about the bottom line and because of that, they are impeding progress. The carriers shouldn’t ever force a service to be the “standard,” but if it is, it should be based on the merits of the service and its offerings.

I’m so glad T-Mobile is the UNcarrier and “doing things differently.”

TechCrunch via @tmobile