Sunday, December 7, 2008

U.K.'s T-Mobile G1 roaming feature disabled by default

There's nothing more shocking for a mobile user to received a huge monthly bill, one particular user who live in U.S. and own a G1 Android has received a $102.85 bill.

The Android Community blog was reporting that the user had turned off roaming data sync and 3G completely when he traveled abroad, after getting back from a trip to the UK, he gave T-Mobile a call and spoke with several customer service representatives until a supervisor explained the situation.

Basically, the G1 always accesses the Internet, even when the Internet services are turned off; the G1 will reach out for sending text messages or even placing calls. So in the end the customer service supervisor said, “the phone should have been left in the USA to avoid these charges.”

But then came another report from the Android Community again, this time it's reporting that T-Mobile has turned off the roaming feature in G1 Android phone sold in U.K. If a user so wishes to enable it a warning message will pop informing users that there will be additional costs. You may be asking yourself, why in the world is it disabled for them and now us?

What most baffled me is the last lines of the report; Just to note, when roaming is turned off it includes not just data roaming but all roaming. If you do not wish to incur data roaming charges you will not be able to use your phone. For those of you who travel overseas often, the T-Mobile G1 is about the worst phone for you to own.

It's a shame really, considering that T-Mobile wireless networks can cover the states (U.S.) and U.K. as well, it would make G1 Android as most favorable phone for frequent flyers and definetely beat iPhone for that reason.

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