Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Thursday 4 December 2008, 1:25 PM
T-Mobile G1 could be data-roaming nightmare
A US reader of theirs wrote in to say he had visited the UK with his G1, having thought he'd disabled all data connectivity. It looks like the phone just kept on pinging, though, and he got hit with more than $100 in data roaming charges.
I hope there's another explanation for this, and am waiting for T-Mobile to get back to me with their thoughts and some clarification as to whether UK handsets could be affected. If the case is as it appears, though, then going abroad with your G1 is a really, really bad idea.
PreviousComments on this post
blimely.. I had to berate Vodafone portugal for my iphone data charges on my last trip to the Uk they were nothing like the 1.2 euros a megabyte advertised. Should there not be an automatic reminder to saying you have not turned off data roaming- do hope the EU gets this to under 1 euro this summer.
I think someone needs to be writing an application to make sure this can be switched off! Maybe we'll see some hand sets with a radio button so the connection can be physically disrupted.
Oy vey - it gets worse. My latest post on this subject is here: http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10009931o-2000331761b,00.htm
I took my UK G1 to the US recently, and had data roaming turned off for the entire trip. The phone worked just fine (contrary to your latest post), and I used a whole bunch of wireless hotspots to pick up email and use the maps. but when I came back I found I had a bill for £29 related to data use on one particular occasion - I was in washington airport using a 'freebie' hotspot. I never turned on data roaming on and remember the WLAN symbol for entire download - so how could this be?
Phoned up t-mobile customer services and initially spoke to someone who seemed to be trained in previously uncharted areas of rudeness. She repeated that it was perfectly reasonable that I be billed by T-mobile for somebody else's WLAN use and I was WRONG (and by implication stupid) to imply otherwise. Doh.
So I emailed a complaint and got contacted by a guy at an Indian call centre who were very helpful, explained what he could, offered to refund the money then transferred me to an expert - my faith in t-mobile was being restored.
Then I got some more clues.
Several HTC sourced phones (including the G1) have a bug which lets them stray onto cellular while apparently being connected to WLAN (apparently even if disable roaming is checked). He said I have two choices:
1. Ask t-mobile to disable data roaming on the SIM (though this stops you using MMS)
2. Switch into airplane mode when using data which he said disables cellular but not WLAN.
However, on my G1 option 2 doesn't work and airplane disables all wireless.
So we're stuffed. Either you can't use MMS (which is a pain as its cheap abroad) or you get random £30-£3k bills for taking your G1 abroad.
Not good enough.
