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Rogers is either lying, incompetent, or reckless with the 911 bug.

the Motorola Milestone is coming to Canada on Feb. 18.

Guess what I'll be doing on that date? I'll make sure to call Rogers, let them know that I cancel my contract (I have benn a customer for the last 9 years), WHY I am canceling my contract, and WHERE I will go.

Then, I will go to my Rogers store, and repeat the same thing. The Rogers store manager is a good guy, so I'll be friendly, but I will still let the company know that I cannot be taken for a fool any longer.

Look no further : Rogers added the Wi-Fi and Data part just to cover their own ass in case or a class action.

Nicolas Racine
 
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It's true that WiFi can cause a problem too as it provides you with an internet connection. But let me tell you this. Apply the update and expect all bad things to happen to your phone. A friend just told me that her phone got completely bricked by that update. I haven't seen the phone yet, but I told her to connect the charger while the phone is off (the phone couldn't be turned on), but there wasn't a charging indicator. Try to get into fastboot, recovery mode, nothing worked. Thank you Rogers for a two-day update. This time, you seriously ruined every bit of satisfaction I had with your business. Frankly, I've never heard of a carrier doing what Rogers is doing, or ever heard of an update that has this much major bugs.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention: normally I'd disagree with Mike, not this time.
So in one word: you choose whether to have 1 911 bug (which can be fixed by MERELY turning GPS off, or tens of major bugs. I can imagine someone whose phone was updated getting it out for an emergency and OOPS, phone ain't working, wish it only rebooted as I call 911.
 
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So in one word: you choose whether to have 1 911 bug (which can be fixed by MERELY turning GPS off, or tens of major bugs. I can imagine someone whose phone was updated getting it out and OOPS, phone ain't working. Wish it only rebooted as I call 911.

Sorry, but you're wrong there. You don't choose anything. Rogers choose for you.

Also, I, and many like me did not have to "choose" between the 911 bug and a sh*tty downgrade because, I was already running a fixed ROM. In my case, Rogers fixed a problem that did not exist, and turned my smartphone into a 500$ regular cell phone.

Also, I have been thinking about this. If this upgrade was so important, why not setup upgrade stations in every Rogers outlet in Canada? The people who are not tech savvy enough, or don't want to mess with their phone, could have gone there to have their phone upgraded in a few minutes. Because, really, the upgrade itself, not counting the download, takes about 10 minutes max.

It would have taken a WinXP computer, a USB cable, and a Rogers employee trained (?) to do the upgrade. How simple is that?

Nicolas Racine
 
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I completely agree.

There is something extremely deceiving about this issue.

Firstly, I do not blame RogersMary or anybody else on the RogersBuzz team. They have been an excellent resource, and brought us the Dream > Magic exchange program. I am grateful for that.

With that aside, Mike has extremely clearly detailed the inconsistency in their statements. And I for one cannot accept this, considering at best it looks like they are unsure of the issue.

I believe we need to request that Mary open a channel of communication with her superior, as this unfortunately this issue needs to be addressed by the Office of the President.

My issue with the statements is that there is no way that all these features can prevent 911 calls from happening. Let's talk about hardware features and how they cannot affect 911 ability:

1) GPS.
GPS is really just a receiver. In the chip, it just filters out the frequencies not needed, and uses triangulations of signals to give you a location. Case and point, there is no way the GPS can prevent making calls, as it cannot broadcast an interfering signal. It only receives.

2) WiFi.
FYI, WiFi operates on a 2.4gHz band. As with any waveform, doubles and halves of the 2.4gHz can interfere with that waveform. A quick Google search shows that Rogers uses the frequencies 850mHz and 1.9gHz. They apparently use 850mHz exclusively for 3G. If you multiply that 3 times, you still get 2.55gHz, 150mHz away from 2.4gHz. There is no way that the two signals can interfere with each other.

3) 3G Browsing.
If it was an issue with 3G, we would have seen it on EVERY Rogers phone. Not a hardware issue.

OK, so we know that it can be software. However, why is it specifically affecting 911 calls? Wouldn't the issue be with all calls? I have a theory behind this.

In this situation, Rogers was able to tell the customers that 911 calls can't complete. It was a great scare tactic. Why? If they told customers that they can't complete calls all the time, and need to do an update to fix it, nobody would do the update. They would return to the stores, demand an exchange for another phone because it was defective. With the statements only referring to 911, it scares people into doing an update at their own discretion and liability. As well, they can force the update on you because you are at risk.

However, even if we disregarded my theory, there is the question of why over-the-air (OTA) update support was not included. In another quick Google search, I found that the original Android 1.5 was sent OTA to the G1 in May to T-Mobile customers:

Android 1.5 update for T-Mobile G1 now rolling out, for real this time -- Engadget

So why must we go out of our way, spending hours (for some) to download a package and install at our own risk? (Sorry Mary, you never clarified if Rogers would take responsibility if the update damaged our phones)

Something is fishy at Rogers. If any further issues occur with the network (I have a list of issues I have with their network, not Android related), I might have to be in contact with the Better Business Bureau to ensure that our rights are being met. As much as people have clearly shown the line in the Terms Of Service showing the right to deny service on non-Rogers-approved devices, I do not see anything that says they can shut off your service if you do not install an update onto a device YOU own, and was purchased direct from Rogers.

Although it is a family member that owns the Dream, I am very engaged in this community and the 911 issue. I am a college student taking Robotics, and the final outcome of this issue will be my decider as to whether Rogers will gain me as a new sign-on on a 3 year contract in August.

Honestly, I have been with the other carriers. Rogers has always been my favorite. However, this issue has severely damaged my trust in the company. In order for them to fix their reputation in my books, and regain my trust to refer customers to them, I need a truthful statement explaining what causes the issue, why the fix wasn't delivered OTA, and an apology letter from the Office of the President.

-Bryan
 
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@nicracine:
Mostly agree, but you do have the choice of losing your data.

@XBrav:
Well there actually was a software issue (if you can remember that guy who called Rogers support and told them about it). Won't be defending Rogers this time, it screwed up so badly. As to the OTA updates, smart Rogers didn't wanna pay Google. We didn't get an official 1.6 ROM, we didn't have many features that most Android users had, and our phones weren't equipped with OTA updates support.

EDIT: Thank you, Rogers. Smart choice
 
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Immediately after updating, many users discover new bugs, not to mention missing applications, and in some cases even bricked phones. Yay, Rogers!

I am on board with your website and all the work you've done towards the Android issues with Rogers, but what you consistently fail to realize is that the MAJORITY of the blame here is to be placed on HTC, not Rogers.

Rogers does not make operating systems, nor do they make operating system updates... all you're doing is scapegoating your frustrations on the easiest target... if HTC had a callcenter you'd probably be going off on them...

It is HTC's fault that the Dream and Magic have the problems they do/did, not Rogers. Rogers, however, has the pleasure of cleaning up the mess.

Did you honestly expect the updates to be flawless? When they were so obviously rushed? And what, please tell, did you expect HTC/Rogers to do? Ignore the 911 issue? So someone, somewhere, could possibly die as a result?
 
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I am on board with your website and all the work you've done towards the Android issues with Rogers, but what you consistently fail to realize is that the MAJORITY of the blame here is to be placed on HTC, not Rogers.

Rogers does not make operating systems, nor do they make operating system updates... all you're doing is scapegoating your frustrations on the easiest target... if HTC had a callcenter you'd probably be going off on them...

It is HTC's fault that the Dream and Magic have the problems they do/did, not Rogers. Rogers, however, has the pleasure of cleaning up the mess.

Did you honestly expect the updates to be flawless? When they were so obviously rushed? And what, please tell, did you expect HTC/Rogers to do? Ignore the 911 issue? So someone, somewhere, could possibly die as a result?

You are right about HTC being responsible too. However, HTC did most certainly not instruct Rogers to cut Data, to force the upgrade, and to wait from september until January before deciding to do something about fixing this essential, life-threatening bug.

HTC provided a faulty upgrade, but Rogers chose to harass its customers.

See, there is blame for everyone. :)

Nicolas Racine
 
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I am on board with your website and all the work you've done towards the Android issues with Rogers, but what you consistently fail to realize is that the MAJORITY of the blame here is to be placed on HTC, not Rogers.

Rogers does not make operating systems, nor do they make operating system updates... all you're doing is scapegoating your frustrations on the easiest target... if HTC had a callcenter you'd probably be going off on them...

It is HTC's fault that the Dream and Magic have the problems they do/did, not Rogers. Rogers, however, has the pleasure of cleaning up the mess.

Did you honestly expect the updates to be flawless? When they were so obviously rushed? And what, please tell, did you expect HTC/Rogers to do? Ignore the 911 issue? So someone, somewhere, could possibly die as a result?

@jaimieownsu: I can and will blame Rogers. When you buy something at a store and it doesn't work you take it back to the store. When you buy a car and there is something wrong, you go to the dealer, not the manufacturer (unless there is a recall, and I know because of my wife's Kia).

I hold Rogers responsible because they either bought in to Android without doing their homework, or they were conned by HTC. Either way, Rogers sold me the phone, not HTC.

By the way, I notice in another thread that you work for a Rogers Plus store.
 
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I hold Rogers responsible because they either bought in to Android without doing their homework, or they were conned by HTC. Either way, Rogers sold me the phone, not HTC.

We could say they same thing about each person who bought a Dream or Magic, couldn't we? That we all should have "done our homework" so we wouldn't have ended up with these issues?
 
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Your point?

Regardless of who sold you the phone, the manufacturer produced it, and thusly are to blame for any defects. That's just logic.

You can, however, blame Rogers for how they've handled it, but I don't hear you coming up with any better solutions.

I haven't come up with better solutions? I've only been pressuring Rogers to get us Android 1.6 for almost 4 months now. Android 1.6 _includes_ the 911 bug fix, and it has been properly tested.

And before you tell me that that's HTC's fault, and not Rogers, both Rogers and HTC have said that it is up to the _Carrier_ to request the update from the _manufacturer_.

You want another "better solution"? How about this; Rogers should pick a few techs who are familiar with Android and have them test a few of the ROMs out there that already had the bug fix (the ones that are based on 1.6 or above) and give us an unofficial "official" list of "unofficially" approved ROMs. Let us root our phones and install one of those ROMs. If the ROM passes the 911 test, give us back our data.

One of the biggest benefits of Android was supposed to be its freedom. Rogers and HTC are crushing that.
 
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We could say they same thing about each person who bought a Dream or Magic, couldn't we? That we all should have "done our homework" so we wouldn't have ended up with these issues?

At the time the Dream and Magic debuted (which is when I bought my Magic) in June 2009 the only info we had was for NON-Rogers versions of the phones.

Because Rogers had HTC customize the phones here, they turned out to be "different". The homework we _did_ do (and I did do my homework) didn't serve us well because these phones are different. If Rogers had bought the Google-branded versions instead, we wouldn't be in this mess.

The last few months have been the only real time we've had to find out all the problems with these Rogers phones, and as a result I and others have been able to post on our blogs and in forums all the problems so that hopefully the next person considering buying an Android phone from Rogers will have the info we didn't have when we bought our phones in June and July of last year.
 
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None of that changes the fact that HTC provided defective phones.

I'm all for you petitioning for 1.6, but lets be honest, you didn't start your quest because you knew about the 911 bug, you did because you (like myself) learned that the Dream would not be getting 1.6, and were annoyed by that. I, personally, just rooted my phone after I found that out. To each their own, I suppose.

Rogers doesn't have techs who tinker with ROMs, HTC would be the ones to handle that... it's their phone. Rogers doesn't make phones. No matter what Rogers had HTC do, they clearly wouldn't have requested something like: "Oh yeah, can you make it so people can't call 911 when the GPS is on? That would be swell."
 
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It's a shame that it came to this on Rogers. They are just trying to cover their asses because it is illegal to sell a cell phone that can't have a constant 911 connection with or without service. They are trying to do anything they can to minimize PR damage and at the same time comply to the rules. If someone died because they couldn't call 911 with one of these phones the family could sue Rogers. Then to top it all off someone screwed up the fix and just made things worse it sounds like.

Their was a huge ordeal with OTA updates on Verizon a while back about Verizon updating phones without knowing if people were in a safe place to not have 911 service. That is what lead to in store, windows, and user approved OTA updates. The approval you give when you say yes update is you stating that you are in a safe place and you can be without your phone while it is inoperable. Basically they have you take all liability by saying yes.
 
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None of that changes the fact that HTC provided defective phones.

I'm all for you petitioning for 1.6, but lets be honest, you didn't start your quest because you knew about the 911 bug, you did because you (like myself) learned that the Dream would not be getting 1.6, and were annoyed by that. I, personally, just rooted my phone after I found that out. To each their own, I suppose.

Rogers doesn't have techs who tinker with ROMs, HTC would be the ones to handle that... it's their phone. Rogers doesn't make phones. No matter what Rogers had HTC do, they clearly wouldn't have requested something like: "Oh yeah, can you make it so people can't call 911 when the GPS is on? That would be swell."

My god! Is this bad faith or what?

First you claim that Rogers has nothing to do with all the troubles up to now. Fine. Let's go with that for a while.

Then you say it's the customer's fault for not doing their homework and research before buying the phone. All right.

Now, let's assemble both your claims and see what happens:

You are saying that we are to blame because we did not do our homework, our research before buying the phone. So, what did Rogers do before getting the phone from HTC and offering them to their customers? Did it research the phone? Did it try it on it's network?

We are to blame for the same reason that Rogers is not to be blamed.

Biased much? What's the point of you working for a Rogers store? Take a good look at what you are saying. This looks like a lot of Rogers propaganda to me.

I always research a phone before buying it. I made sure I would be able to root my Magic when I got it. I did root the phone. All was well. I did not have to worry about the 911 bug. I had a lean, mean, phoning machine.

Rogers, in it's incompetence, Took all that away because it does not understand, or does not want to understand, what is a smartphone, what is Android and what is the rooting process.

Blame HTC for the faulty hardware/upgrade? Sure why not.

Blame Rogers for the very mean way it treats it's customers, the way it forces downgrade to people who bought phone from them, the way it lies to it's customers? Of course.

Get some perspective, please.

Nicolas Racine
 
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Wow, you're a moron. I could less of a shit about Rogers.

You are saying that we are to blame because we did not do our homework, our research before buying the phone. So, what did Rogers do before getting the phone from HTC and offering them to their customers? Did it research the phone? Did it try it on it's network?
One can easily make the comparison because HTC sent out lemons... what's next? You're going to tell me that Rogers is the only company in the world that had defective products in their lineup? As if this Toyota thing wasn't a good enough example. Hmm, yeah, I guess all those dealerships and all those people should have "researched" the accelerator and all the dealerships should have tested each model personally. Oh and clearly Toyota never tested any of the models, just sent them out blindly, just like HTC and Rogers, right??

Please. I knew I shouldn't have mentioned the fact that I work at a Rogers Plus, I knew you sad bastards would just start refocusing your hate from the greater Rogers to anyone related, I could go on saying you're totally right and you'd still gripe, just cause you've had to deal with some ****** in a call center. Well guess what, it's a call center, it's full of ******s who hate their lives.

I only replied to this stupid thread because it's so mind numbing to hear morons going on and on about why Rogers is bad when this has nothing to do with them.

Like I said before, blame Rogers all you want for how they're handling it, but the defective phones are HTC's doing. Please continue to deny that. It's amusing to read your idiotic excuses.
 
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Like I said before, blame Rogers all you want for how they're handling it, but the defective phones are HTC's doing. Please continue to deny that. It's amusing to read your idiotic excuses.

Your arguments are not logical.

Take the Toyota example. Toyota make the cars, and sell them. Yes, they buy the parts from providers, but the providers already established that it followed Toyota's plans. So Toyota's plans were defective.

Rogers buys the phones from HTC, then sell them to its customers. Two different things entirely. Following your example, HTC could blame the GPS chip provider for the 911 bug. Rogers would be just someone who bought bad merchandise and try to sell it to it's customers.

Now, go read my post again, I do not blame Rogers for the bugs and hardware difficulties. I blame Rogers for the way it handled the entire matter. HTC has nothing to do with that. Roger's people panicked, locked down all Android phones, imposed an upgrade/downgrade to everybody, regardless of whether they needed it or not, and proceeded at the same time to lock the phones in such a way that it is now impossible to modify them in any way.

Why is that bad? Beside the obvious reasons related to the Customer Experience, Rogers always advertised the Android phones as a revolution, Android being that free, evolutive, platform that will keep on growing, evolving.

1- If it were not for a few very active people here, we would be stuck forever with Android 1.5, a version that is already deemed obsololete by many Android developers.
2- Not Roger's fault, but we still don't have access to paid apps on the Android Market. This problem had been resolved with Rooting the phone. For now, rooting is out of the question, that is Roger's fault.

This is not the Android we were promised. Not at all. Rogers did not realised what it was getting into when it started offering Android. It probably thought it would be just another static OS, with very few updates.

I blame Rogers for that. Now, tell me how it is HTC's fault. You can't say that it is the customer's fault for not researching the product, but it's not Rogers fault for not doing the same. There is no logic there.

Let's take aside the faulty hardware and upgrade for a moment, and tell me that you truthfully believe that Roger's behaviour has been exemplary in all that mess.

See, it's possible to argue without any insult or name calling.

Nicolas Racine
 
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Your arguments are not logical.

Take the Toyota example. Toyota make the cars, and sell them. Yes, they buy the parts from providers, but the providers already established that it followed Toyota's plans. So Toyota's plans were defective.

So HTC's plans were defective? Good. Sounds logical to me, that's all I wanted to hear you say.

Rogers buys the phones from HTC, then sell them to its customers. Two different things entirely. Following your example, HTC could blame the GPS chip provider for the 911 bug. Rogers would be just someone who bought bad merchandise and try to sell it to it's customers.

What is your complaint exactly? All I'm hearing is "Yes, I agree it is HTC's fault." That's all I care about.

If you could read properly, you'd see that when I originally said "we could blame Rogers customers the same etc etc..." I was making a hypothetical comparison to what the OP was saying about Rogers buying the phones from HTC "without research". But you and I have just handily proved that it wasn't Rogers fault, via your own example. End of conversation.

For the record, I obviously don't think it's our fault for buying HTC phones... please...

I have both the Dream and Magic ffs.
 
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I'm not sure how else you think Rogers should have handled the situation. Should they have let people run around with 911-incapable phones? And suffer the responsibility of potential deaths/lawsuits? I did the update on my Magic... it's not perfect... but what OS update ever is.

Edit: My Dream is rooted however.
 
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So HTC's plans were defective? Good. Sounds logical to me, that's all I wanted to hear you say.



What is your complaint exactly? All I'm hearing is "Yes, I agree it is HTC's fault." That's all I care about.

If you could read properly, you'd see that when I originally said "we could blame Rogers customers the same etc etc..." I was making a hypothetical comparison to what the OP was saying about Rogers buying the phones from HTC "without research". But you and I have just handily proved that it wasn't Rogers fault, via your own example. End of conversation.

For the record, I obviously don't think it's our fault for buying HTC phones... please...

I have both the Dream and Magic ffs.

LOL fine. Good for you! [pat on the back]

Nicolas Racine
 
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@yyken: I just wanted you to know, so you don't feel you are wasting your time here, that my mind won't be changed, and I am confident in my position. I also am not concerned with your personal opinion of me, so you can't hurt my feelings. Just trying to save you some time in the future. :)

@jaimieownsu: I am aware of the distinction between Rogers and HTC, and of course I am upset with HTC. I have pointed out repeatedly their foibles. The thing you need to know, however, is that RogersMary has specifically asked us repeatedly to send all of our information, complaints, and requests regarding our Rogers HTC Android phones through her.

Further more, as far as sound tactics go, HTC has no presence in Canada, and they do not have the sort of go between we have with RogersMary. Further more, we have less ability to affect HTC than we do Rogers, but Rogers has the ability to affect HTC.

To HTC we are little fish in their world wide market, but to Rogers we represent a larger portion. Rogers has more to lose from negative PR _locally_ which is where we live. By putting pressure on Rogers, who have a relationship with HTC, we can affect change through Rogers that we could not do to HTC. All throughout the demand for Android 1.6 RogersMary told us that Rogers was negotiating with HTC as a result of our pressure.

Perception is reality. If we had made this about HTC from the start, instead of Rogers, we would have had less traction. The general population know the name Rogers far better than they know the name HTC, so if the goal is to pressure one of those companies in to given us support, it makes more sense to go after Rogers, which would be hurt by negative PR, and which can pressure HTC through their relationship, than to try to get to HTC, which would not be affected by the negative PR in Canada, or perhaps even world wide.

As for the issues themselves, I am more than capable of separating them. The desire for an update to Android is separate from the 911 issue.

It comes down to this:

- The 911 issue was fixed by Google in September of 2009.
- _HTC_ helped T-Mobile get that 911 fix out to T-Mo customers with the G1 and the MyTouch in Android 1.6 October 1 2009. Which means HTC knew about the problems.
- A Rogers tech was warned of the problem in Sept 2009.
- Rogers claims customer safety is their priority.
- Jan 19 they asked us to turn of GPS only. They didn't mention Data or WiFi.
- Jan 22 they warned us Data would be turned off to make sure 911 calls would complete, but not until Jan 24.
- Feb 4 Rogers warns us we need to turn off WiFi for 911 calls to work.

Those are not opinions, they are facts.

So this is about Rogers and the 911 bug, it has nothing to do with the Android 1.6 update issue.

The issue now, is that either turning Data and WiFi of are necessary for unpatched phones to complete 911 calls, or they are not.

If they are necessary, and if Rogers is truly concerned with customer safety, why did they wait so long to turn them of/tell us to turn them off?

It's a legitimate question given that Rogers insists our safety is their primary concern.

If they didn't know, they are not doing their jobs well, unless HTC knew (which they should have, since they fixed it on T-Mobile Oct 1) in which case HTC should have told Rogers.

If they did know from the start that data and WiFi needed to be off but didn't tell us, that means they put our lives at risk. It follows logically.

So arguments ovr whom we should blame aren't relevant. If you want to debate, let's debate the real issue; that being, if data and WiFi need to be off for 911 calls to complete on unpatched phones, why didn't they tell us that Jan 19?
 
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I'm totally with you on this one mjschmidt, Rogers needs to answer these questions and they need to answer them soon. I'm growing quite tired of Rogers and all their nonsense. Yes, as one narrow-minded member said, we could just cancel and go somewhere else... But what would that change? Forums like this, people like us, can start the ball rolling for true change. Making Rogers atone and correct their mistakes will not only help us but help all those customers that cannot speak out as easily.

+1 to the OP's Thread Title.
 
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