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Android Susceptible To Apps That Turn On Roaming

Posted by timothy on from the would-love-to-see-an-actual-toggle-switch dept.

fermion writes "If seems that Google's Android and T-Mobile have not learned from the bad experience and wrath Apple incurred with roaming charges on the iPhone. Applications can switch to roaming and data operation without the user's knowledge. Also, according to The Register, there is no way to switch off roaming. Given the backlash that Apple experienced over international roaming charges, one would think that T-Mobile would have built a phone to prevent such unexpected charges." From the wording of the article, the inability to turn off roaming seems to be on a per-application basis; users can evidently disable it globally.

11 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Roaming charges are ridiculous. by theaveng · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What reasonable explanation can exist for charging me an extra 50 cents per minute, just because I made a call from Maryland instead of Pennsylvania? I can't think of any. Cingular used to do that to me, but now I use Virgin Mobile which did away with that nonsense (I pay a flat 18 cents anywhere in the U.S.). That's how all cellphones should operate.

    --
    FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
    1. Re:Roaming charges are ridiculous. by geekmux · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What reasonable explanation can exist for charging me an extra 50 cents per minute, just because I made a call from Maryland instead of Pennsylvania? I can't think of any. Cingular used to do that to me, but now I use Virgin Mobile which did away with that nonsense (I pay a flat 18 cents anywhere in the U.S.). That's how all cellphones should operate.

      Ah, to summarize with maximum efficiency negating your "reasonable" request for an answer: Because they can.

    2. Re:Roaming charges are ridiculous. by thrillseeker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ah, but this isn't capitalism - this is regulations, bught and paid for, allowing avoidance of capitalism. Capitalism allows competition - we have given competition away (ok, ok - sold out cheap) in exchange of supposed expensive infrastructure.

    3. Re:Roaming charges are ridiculous. by RingDev · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It costs millions to build and maintain a tower.

      When you go into roaming, you are using your provider's competitor's network. The competition wants to make money to pay for their tower, and you are not their customer, so they are going to bill your provider an arm an a leg for access, and your provider will pass those costs on to you.

      Even more so, the more the competition charges for roaming calls, the more upset you will be with your provider, and if you need to go into roaming often enough, you will be more likely to leave your provider and join up with the very competitor that had been billing 50 cents a minute for the same call you are now making for 10 cents a minute.

      Although, with all the new peering and leasing agreements going on, we'll likely see less and less of roaming fees from any provider that owns some amount of their own towers.

      -Rick

      --
      "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
    4. Re:Roaming charges are ridiculous. by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It costs millions to build and maintain a tower.

      Sure, if you maintain it for 27 centuries.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    5. Re:Roaming charges are ridiculous. by Lumpy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What reasonable explanation can exist for charging me an extra 50 cents per minute, just because I made a call from Maryland instead of Pennsylvania? I can't think of any.

      I can... it makes them RICHER.

      Your cellphone company hates you and wants to rob you blind. When you understand that fact, you will have a far better understand of how Corporations do business.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    6. Re:Roaming charges are ridiculous. by Serious+Callers+Only · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ah, but this isn't capitalism - this is regulations, bught and paid for, allowing avoidance of capitalism. Capitalism allows competition - we have given competition away (ok, ok - sold out cheap) in exchange of supposed expensive infrastructure.

      Truly free capitalism degenerates pretty quickly into monopolies and cartels (which are illegal for a reason). Once someone has a stranglehold on the market it does not allow competition as it is not in the interests of incumbents to give up power, and they have the means to easily crush any smaller companies (price fixing, bribery, coercion, subsidies below cost until the competitor goes under, etc etc).

      The only way to ensure that doesn't happen is to introduce the regulations that you affect to despise.

  2. Thanks for the explanation by Chrisq · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This looks like a platform flaw to me.

    1. Re:Thanks for the explanation by Ilgaz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They should buy a Symbian S60 or even a modern J2ME handset and see how strict you gotta be on communications network which user pays for bytes. Google embraced and extended J2ME but passed its sandbox/security model?

      Everyone keeps hating Symbian and J2ME security model but it seems as the only way to make best of both open competition and security. Nokia and others learned it very hard and expensive way.

  3. Re:If they couldn't... they'd still bitch... by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No this is not the way things should work. The "roaming disabled" should be like a firewall. It should be possible to add exceptions for explicit applications, and those apps could recommend you did this during install - but it should be up to you.

  4. Re:If they couldn't... they'd still bitch... by Sockatume · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd say that a program that disregards your preferences is already falling short of using the full functionality of the phone.

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    No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?