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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.

5 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.

    --
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    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 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. 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.