Keyboard Cowboy More and-or less confused after tomorrow

Rogers and their idiocy with Android

You think that the whole malarky with Rogers not paying HTC for upgrades to Android is bad? Look at the garbage that I have gone through with my newly-acquired HTC Dream. Why is it that the lone GSM provider in the country has the most inept managers and network technicians?

If Rogers was serious about a revolution with the HTC Dream, then this is certainly a hell of a one.

Ed (20:50 PDT): Added a section on Rogers' stupidity with Blackberries. Oi.

The exact problem

Back in September, it was noted that Android 1.5 had a serious bug where dialling 911 could result in the phone spontaneously rebooting on the user; this is of course very dangerous and was patched almost immediately as soon as it appeared in the Android bug tracker. However, there was one slight problem with Rogers' end.

The bug was patched in 1.6 when it was released in October, but since Rogers wasn't paying HTC for further upgrades to the HTC Dream, they didn't receive the update nor were able to provide it for their customers. Eventually Rogers started to cave when users of Dream phones pushed for an upgrade, and gave them HTC Magics on the condition that they renew their contracts--this is why I have an HTC Dream now as my main phone instead of a Nokia E71.

However, even though the bug in 1.5 was known by the Android community for several months, it wasn't until mid-late January that Rogers began to push out a new upgrade of 1.5 to its customers. Of course, those who were already running the Cyanogen Android 1.6 release (such as myself) were being harassed via robo-dialers, SMS messages, and then the eventual data and voice disabling.

If Rogers were to push out an upgrade that wasn't so inferior and was full of extra garbage such as SenseUI, perhaps I'd be onboard and went with the patch. However, why should I be obligated to run their software on my own phone? And why does the upgrade include all of this extra crap in the first place? I see no necessity in using the software and if I am using a version that works, why should I be harassed?

Time-line of events

Sorry. I don't want of this branded crap.

Here's the time-line of idiocy that I endured:

• January 29 - I acquired a used HTC Dream from my friend, Ryan after he had received a new HTC Magic via an exchange program. The phone was already running Cyanogen with a Android 1.6 build as opposed to Rogers' inferior 1.5 build--both of which have the E911 fix that Rogers is rushing to push out.
• January 31 - Rogers disables my data plan. I immediately think that this has to do with my phone's APN settings as I had been making changes and had reset the phone the night before to fix a problem. Confirming said settings with various results on Google made me suspicious.
• February 1 - Contacted Rogers' customer service and they tell me that my phone's data has not been disabled, but my phone's data settings were indeed correct. The representative on the other end assures me that I will have my data use for the month of February covered. Rep says that my data should return within 24-hours.
• February 2 - Contacted Rogers' customer service again via their online chat. The representative on the other end again said that my data wasn't disabled. I confirmed again my APN settings and she acknowledged that they were correct. Managed to convince her to do a "network refresh" of my phone and left the chat. After a reboot, my data was working again.
• February 7 - Made an outbound call in the afternoon and was immediately diverted to Rogers' customer service. My first reaction is "excuse me" and then "reactive my phone immediately" in probably the most aggravated tone I have ever had with a perfect stranger. Gave her my account details, explained to her how stupid her company was, and had my voice calls reactivated.

And of course all through that period I had endless robo-calls and SMS messages. It's as if I have to be made aware of the issue umpteen times to get whatever message they're trying to get to me.

Why am I so pissed off?

Well, it is quite simple if you comprehend the above. Here is another summary in point form:

• Unlike my Nokia E71, this phone is not necessarily under contract even though it is now tied to my account. It's 100% my property and its operation is not the business of any carrier provided it creates no threat to the operation of their network. This is akin to me running something other than Mac OS X or Windows on my desktop and connecting it to an ISP's network.
• I pay for a data service that shouldn't be interrupted except where the data network doesn't exist.
• I pay for voice service that shouldn't be interrupted except where voice calls are not possible.
• Rogers' customer service representatives are unable to tell apart a disabled data account and a non-disabled data account.
• My phone is running the latest firmware that isn't affected by the E911 bug that Rogers sat on for months.
• To make matters insulting, a retentions rep. informed me that I should go out and try and buy a used Magic as many had replaced their phones. If you take a look a few posts back, you'll see me talking about when I spoke to the rep. Obviously nobody knows what is going on.

I am of course not the only person running into problems! Here are a few other people experiencing the same crap:

• Latest in the Rogers debacle – All calls redirected (litui.net)
• Rogers and its e911 Commitment to the CRTC (litui.net)
• Rogers Mandatory Update (xda-developers.com)
• Rogers Update: 911 Fix for Rogers HTC Dream and Magic is Ready (howardforums.com)
• Rogers Diverting All Calls, INCLUDING 911 Calls for Some Unupdated Dream/Magic (howardforums.com)
• Rogers HTC 911 Issue – The Plot Thickens (iwantmyonepointsix.com)

Rogers' response in social media

If I wanted SenseUI, I would have gotten a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone.

Being that Rogers is "hip" and "trendy" in today's market, they of course have some of their marketing droids on Twitter. I happen to just follow Mary Pretotto's official Rogers account.

Here are some of her statements.

• @afreak [...] Customer safety remains priority & all customers will need to d/l this update so 911 calls complete.
• @mcantelon Hi. We can't support rooted/unlocked phone b/c we don't know how those devices work on our network. Custs should d/l the bug fix.
• @mcantelon As long as data is turned off, you can dial 911. I recommend you download the software to fix the 911 bug.
• @double0three Customer safety being the priority, SMS and voice msg are only being sent to customers still needing to complete the update.
• @IWMOPS @gervai5 @GreatBigDog01 Referring to the 1.5 bug fix? These are different devices, on a different OS from a different manufacturer.
• @sweetescapes All Magic and Dream customers are getting 1mnth free data (less roaming). Should see on your account w/in 60 days.
• @DGfromMTL We can only support the 1.5 operating system as we don't know how other OS impact the network. Hope that helps clarify.
• @DGfromMTL Hi Dave. The new update was needed to fix a 911 bug. We can't support rooted devices as we don't know how they'll work on our n/w

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. They won't support unlocked/rooted phones but they'll force the updates on the users anyway. Good policy!

I can understand if her job places her in a position where she cannot give Cyanogen users some help, but I wish that there was some consistency and some knowledge of the problem at hand. If their marketing droids and their own CSRs are being idiotic with us users, then either they're incompetent or they're purposely trying to force us to run their software and their software only.

Rogers isn't just stupid with updates

Here's an excerpt from a friend of mine who doesn't live in Canada and thinks that Rogers is run by a bunch of idiots:

20:19:37 < &Hawkline> afreak, one of our clients wanted to stop some of their staff
                      with blackberries from being able to purchase apps from
                      blackberryworld
20:19:45 < &Hawkline> or accumulate other odd charges on the corporate plan
20:19:48 < &Hawkline> this is a multinational company
20:20:08 < &Hawkline> they had no problem getting the american carriers, O2,
                      vodafone, and some carrier in hong kong to accomdate this
                      request
20:20:13 < &Hawkline> rogers said they coudl not do it
20:20:18 < &afreak> uh doesn't blackberry enterprise server allow for that?
20:20:57 < &Hawkline> we couldn't find a way to have bes only stop the money apps
                      from appworld, plus it wouldn't do anything for stuff like MMS
                      charges or ringtones
20:21:26 < &Hawkline> bes coudl stop all of the apps, which im sure would have
                      annoyed someone important who wanted ot install tivo2go or
                      something

Yeah. No surprise, eh?

Conclusion? Doubt it

So far I am thinking that I cannot get out of my Rogers contract (which doesn't expire until 2012) without paying the bullshit early cancellation fee even though they have cut off my service for issues that do not affect me nor are their business to enforce upon me. If I have told them once that my phone is unaffected by the problem, they should have this on record and then leave me alone.

But of course, Rogers will probably continue to coddle us.