For a very long time, Nokia's online firmware repository has been a source for early access to official Nokia Lumia Windows Phone firmware. Whenever a new firmware for any particular Lumia device has leaked, thanks to the grapevine, enthusiasts had no problem updating their phones long before Nokia makes it available to the public.

Getting access to Nokia's online firmware repository was always possible through NaviFirm; however, it seemed odd that Nokia would allow access to its ROM collection so easily and chose to do nothing about it. Those days are now ending, as the Finnish giant released an important news bulletin regarding this very issue, which is as follows:

"IMPORTANT NEWS BULLETIN 12-21-2012 FROM NOKIA:

Nokia will close open connection to Nokia Firmware Repository during January 2013 and Implement access control. Ater this, the Nokia Online login is required to access Nokia Firmware Repository. During transition phase (December 2012 - January 2013), both open and restricted channels are open, but the open channel will be closed at the end of January 2013 After this, application updates and device software downloading are possible only by using the latest software releases with service NOL login supported."

People with the right Nokia account will have their access restricted by the end of January and NaviFirm would become useless for Windows Phone fans. Therefore, if you haven't downloaded the latest Nokia Lumia Windows Phone 7.8 ROM yet, then you'd better get to it before the clock starts ticking.

What's interesting is that Microsoft once promised that it would allow enthusiast early access to updates before they were released to the public. The company said this way back in June 2012. Whatever happened to that program?