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Canadian Android Carrier Forcing Firmware Update

Posted by kdawson on from the monopoly-rents dept.

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."

3 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. but... by smash · · Score: 1, Troll
    Apple is evil, and android is open!

    Wait... what?

    --
    I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
  2. Re:Uhm, I thought it was open? by The-Pheon · · Score: 0, Troll

    and in other news, my sister is going to do this? good luck with that.

  3. Re:Uhm, I thought it was open? by jimicus · · Score: 0, Troll

    Let me get this straight - whoever figured this out has a mobile phone which has an issue with the firmware which can cause it to crash horribly when making an emergency call.

    A firmware update which fixes this issue is available.

    And they would rather screw around with the version number the phone reports to the network to avoid having to carry out this upgrade than just do it? I hope to Christ they never have to call the emergency services.