[kwlug-disc] android phone, anyone?

[unsolicited]

Khalid Baheyeldin wrote, On 12/17/2009 9:26 PM:
> Well, I am one of those people who had a Rogers phone (some Motorola)
> with a GSM SIM card from them too. I hated the phone and got an HTC unlocked
> one with a sliding keyboard, touchscreen, WiFi, ..etc. from eBay. Put my SIM
> card in it and it works fine.
> 
> I have a prepaid plan which comes to less than $10 per month ($100 lasts 
> a year and carries forward if you do not use it all).

This is the $8 1/3 / month I mentioned.

Carries forward if you top up again. I do the same. [Think of it this 
way, you put money in, it's gone. You can use it or lose it, but 
you're not getting it back.]

> The catch? They charge more for data than on the original phone. They can
> easily detect that because the IMEI number is different. But there is a 
> business
> reason for this: the Motorola used a WAP proxy and hence the pages I browsed
> were converted to a very small size byte wise. With the HTC phone, I was 
> browsing
> the web as it is, graphics and all. So the $0.05 per page price no 
> longer applies.
> 
> Bottom line: they detect that you changed the phone, not via any hidden 
> firmware
> or all that, but a simple match of the SIM vs. the IMEI number. They let 
> you use the
> handset you chose, with the above caveat re: data.

I don't think what you're saying is strictly true. I asked Rogers 
about this recently when they were advertising $1/day PAYG (Pay As You 
Go) maximums.

Turns out that the different charges you talk about result from which 
of two proxies your phone is programmed to use. (No reason you can't 
program both in, and choose which data connection you want when you 
initiate a data connection. I'm suspect - never tried it though.)

I'm not yet convinced it's the hardware itself.

One is the wide open internet you talk about, and the resulting 
charges, and the other uses 'goam'.

See below. They claim I can't 'goam' because I have a PDA, but I 
suspect it's merely that I haven't (yet?) programmed that gateway in.

wireless.inq at rci.rogers.com wrote, On 11/04/2009 3:34 PM:
 > Dear Sir/Madam
 >
 > The Palm Treo 680 is a PDA and therefore not compatible with the
 > $1/day (24 hrs) for unlimited browsing.
 >
 > Text messages or email to text are not included with the $1/day (24
 > hrs) for unlimited browsing.
 >
 > The $1/day (24 hrs) unlimited on-device browsing provides access to
 > GOAM (goam.com) WAP browsing.
 >
 > Thank you for choosing Rogers, we appreciate your business. If you
 > have further questions do not hesitate to reply to this email or
 > contact us at 1-800-575-9090 Monday-Friday 9am-6pm local time.
 >
 > For future email correspondence with respect to this e-mail, please
 >
 > Regards,
 > Terry D.
 > Rogers Online Customer Service
 > http://www.rogers.com