Canadian Android Carrier Forcing Firmware Update 238
Wolfier writes "For wireless carrier Rogers in Canada, it seems that 'Customer Safety' only becomes a concern after months of neglect. Rogers is the only GSM carrier in Canada and so the only choice for Android users. Months ago, a customer called Rogers to report a firmware bug that was preventing users from making 911 calls under certain circumstances, and informed the carrier that Google had fixed the bug (recording of that call). But Rogers is only doing something about it now — namely, cutting data access of paying customers until they accept a mandatory firmware upgrade that not only fixes the 911 problem, but also contains 'extra' features that prevent users from ever gaining root access to their phones — even non-subsidized ones. And some phones are also getting bricked by this 'official' update. The moral: we really need to open up the competition here up North."
Contract breaking? (Score:5, Interesting)
Considering that Rogers isn't giving you data service anymore, a service that you pay for, could this be used as a way to break out of the contract?
After all, they refuse to provide the data service, they're not holding up their end of the deal, and you're paying for a service you cannot use.
Hell, at least call them and demand a credit for service not provided. Or move the SIM card to an iPhone and demand they activate the data service.
It's not like the data comes with the plan - you're free to buy any voice plan with a data plan.
Concealing device id/type/abilities? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there any practical way to conceal the details of the device from the carrier? To prevent the carrier from knowing the ID#, model #, or software details of the phone, beyond the identifying numbers on the SIM card?
As far as I'm concerned, if I own the hardware, I should be able to do what I want with it. All the service provider should care about is the SIM card to which they provide service.
Re:Rogers is terrible (Score:4, Interesting)
I run Cyanogen on my Dream as well, but I got around the data blockage like so:
If you were quick enough to take advantage of the free HTC Magic upgrade they offered, you can just root the Magic and install CursorSense (at least 1.2.1). CursorSense is a mod of the official Rogers firmware, so as far as Rogers is concerned, you have a 'patched' phone, so they re-enable data access on your account. At that point you can switch back to your Dream with full 3G access.
I was without data for about a day (my Magic only arrived Monday, a day after they started blocking data), but since then I've been fine.
Rogers can take their mandatory upgrade and shove it. :p
The legal leg is fine. (Score:1, Interesting)
The legal leg is fine. What will happen is that either they'll brinkmanship you in the hope that under the threats you'll give up or as soon as the Small Claims court case is underway, they'll settle out of court.
They'll just hope that people would think "they've got lawyers, so they should know the law right?". Most people think that.
Most people are dead wrong.
Re:Some phones are more open than Android (Score:3, Interesting)
>you have essentially a little Linux computer with all that implies
Haha, be careful with that one ;)
I own an n810, the predecessor to the N900 smartphone. Maemo indeed is Linux, and other than a few adaptations for the UMPC-sized screen, is a lot more like running a desktop distro than a smartphone OS. The applications are C and C++ mostly, and use libraries similar or identical to those of Linux desktop apps for the most part.
WebOS is a lot like Linux under the hood, but a lot of it is "under the hood" as far as the user and even non-native app developer are concerned. (Native apps are a different story, you can port an SDL game from Linux in a very straightforward fashion now.)
Android is even farther from a Linux distro as far as the guts go (see my link in a previous message), though it is more open-source as far as the parts that aren't like a Linux distro go that it adds, unlike WebOS, though it is more locked-down than WebOS, unless hackers root it (without the aid or endorsement of Google), as I pointed out. I should point out that unauthorized rooting and custom ROMs have nothing to do with the openness or open source status of a system, plenty of Windows Mobile phones have custom ROMs and unauthorized tethering access and the like.
Re:How ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
My experience too.
I live in Europe (UK at the moment) and took my (unlocked) GSM phone to Canada when I went on vacations there. Since I was going to be there for almost a month, I bought a SIM card from Rogers to use in Canada and avoid roaming costs.
My experience:
- A Pay-As-You-Ggo (i.e. no contract) SIM is ridiculously expensive (C$50 with no included minutes). For comparisson sake, £35 (about C$60) in the UK with no contract gets me a SIM card, a mobile network dongle (really!) and includes £15 in credit (and the UK is hardly the cheapest mobile phone market in Europe, in Holland I got a SIM card for 5 EUR).
- In Canada you pay to receive calls (wtf!)
- Top-ups expire after a while: in other words, you load money into the phone and if you don't use it before a set deadline date then Rogers just takes it away.
- Making calls does cost about 2/3 of what it costs in the UK. Again, please note that the UK is far from the cheapest mobile market in Europe.
- Checking your voicemail is free in the UK but costs money with Rogers in Canada.
To top it all up, they assigned me a mobile number which was re-used from somebody else and came subscribed to some "pay-to-receive one SMS joke a day" scam - this required a call to Rogers support where they first tried to deny all responsability and finally relented and repayed the money taken from my account only after I got angry, mentioned that number re-use was not my choice - their problem not mine - and mentioned something about "deceitfull sales practices" and that maybe it should be escalated to the local regulatory entities. I had to demand a block be put on all SMSs to that number to avoid further such issues.
All in all I'm happy this was only for a month and I don't see how you Canadians take it.
Re:Some phones are more open than Android (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think that the GP was questioning whether or not the N900 did run Linux - I think he was responding to the 'and all that implies' statement. Not everyone will see that as a positive thing.
I've tried the N900 and I personally feel it is a steaming pile of unusable shit. It's not a phone I could hand to my parents and expect them to use. It's hard to use one-handed, too many applications do not support portrait mode and the Ovi store selection is dire.
The hardware is OK and the platform has potential, but as a consumer cell phone today, it doesn't cut it.
Re:Some phones are more open than Android (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think that the GP was questioning whether or not the N900 did run Linux - I think he was responding to the 'and all that implies' statement. Not everyone will see that as a positive thing.
I've tried the N900 and I personally feel it is a steaming pile of unusable shit. It's not a phone I could hand to my parents and expect them to use.
Yeah, the N900 is really just a Linux UMPC with a cell radio added. WebOS has a much smoother interface, a bit better interface as far as that goes than Android even (here I go again talking about WebOS on an Android board, it really *is* a nice OS tho, too bad about the lack of apps and hardware build quality for the Pre.)
Re:How ironic (Score:2, Interesting)
Ridiculous is correct, for years the data access rates have been higher for native Canadian SIM than say an Austrian SIM doing data roaming in Canada (haven't checked for 2 years, but it come up in discussion back then, and I was shocked that my SIM would be cheaper when roaming).
Re:Uhm, I thought it was open? (Score:4, Interesting)