G1 News

T-Mobile have spoken about the issues many are facing regarding their roaming on the G1 phone in particular:

“T-Mobile is committed to delivering the best experience in wireless to our customers.  If a T-Mobile customer would like to use their T-Mobile G1 while outside the country, they should contact Customer Care before they leave to ask that the WorldClass feature be added to their service at no additional charge.  If they choose, customers can also disable data roaming on the G1.  This can be done by going through the following steps: Home Screen > Menu > Settings > Wireless Controls > Mobile Networks > Data Roaming.

Some third party applications available for download on Android Market require access to the internet and have the ability to turn on data roaming when in use. Customers are informed whether an application will use this feature prior to downloading, but should also be aware when traveling outside the country.”

Fair enough, a solution is available. But then why not leave this free WorldClass service on for all customers by default?

Following on from the Mystery of the High T-Mobile G1 Roaming Bill, ZDNet has been able to discover that this is not a problem which has managed to cross the Atlantic, thank goodness!

Instead, T-Mobile UK has come up with a novel solution to this matter:

In order to ensure that customers do not incur unexpected costs, roaming is disabled on new UK G1 models. There is an option which allows users to enable roaming, but when this is selected the user will receive a message to confirm that there will be additional costs incurred. At this point users are then given the option to either go ahead and enable roaming, or to cancel.

Well, all or nothing is better than all roaming, all the time. Which means when you ask them to turn on roaming and then leave the country, SHAZAM! Prepare for some big bills, as your G1 pings away happily all holiday!

I don’t know, did we win?

Apparently taking your T-Mobile G1 can cost you a lot more than you bargained for when you take it on holiday, as it likes the internet so much that you cannot be separated from it!

A guy’s data charges whilst on holiday in our land of Blighty rang up to $102.85, despite data charges and 3G all turned off.

The reason? Well, a T-Mobile supervisor released a gem of G1 information when pushed, which was that the phone always accesses the web regardless of what you were doing or which settings were on or off.

The solution? “The phone should have been left in the USA to avoid these charges.” Cold.

His international data roaming was charged at $10 per MB (which he did not use), but he was also charged around $0.15 every few minutes on his itemised bill. For a couple of weeks. Ouch.

Watch out when travelling overseas with a G1, as that thing is enjoying a holiday on foreign networks as much as you are!