Comments on: Swisscom roaming GPRS data fraud

By: lynxman

lynxman — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:22:27 +0000

Sorry to disagree Mike, Operators should warn beforehand about this different metrics depending on the roaming operator, right now O2 UK (my actual operator) texts me when I’m roaming informing me of the data roaming charges per different connection, that’s the way it should be done!

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:06:26 +0000

Your phone shouldn’t be closing connections it still needs. Also, this is the price you pay for using a phone that’s designed for one network, and one network only (They can design for AT&T’s partnership agreements, because you are only supposed to be using the phone on their network). Your phone was designed with AT&T in mind, and AT&T probably has arrangements that don’t have such high per-connect minimums. You took the risk, you got burned.

By: David

David — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 17:55:09 +0000

Thanks guys for those explanations…

I was wondering why my Swisscom online bill showed that i used “30kb” many times a day, even if i didn’t use any webservice at that time.

Unfortunately, most of the time my Carrier changes from Swisscom to SFR (France) as i live on the edge of Leman lake, which is close to the frontier.

Then i believe that my iPhone is just “checking” if GPRS works when i get connected to the new carrier. And then i’m billed 30KB :-/

I’m gonna check if it’s possible for the iPhone to “stick” just with 1 unique carrier. Otherwise i’ll proboably just switch off GPRS when i don’t use it… while fighting with Swisscom helpdesk.

By: Joduba

Joduba — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:21:34 +0000

Hi Marc,

I had a similar problem, but in my case with ATT US.

After a long and dummy discussion with both help desk and technical department, the main conclusions are:

1) My phone is like shit
2) My phone is not compatible with ATT US
3) It’s a ATT problem

It’s clear that last two points doesn’t make sense for an iphone bought in 5th Ave ;-)

Anyway, the main problem is in the concept it self… I can accept to pay 30Kb per “session” but then I did the following question…

“If in 1 minute or less my phone opens 3 connections, I will be charged 30 or 90 Kb ?”

And winner is 90Kb, so…

GPRS is a “data switching” protocol, there is no “circuit” switching”. So the protocol is designed to work “connecting” for every single packet.

Is like to say a packet minimum size is 30Kb…

So this rule is incorrect, as they are based on “common usage”, not in the protocol. They have to invoice packets, or bytes, but not connections as connection is not intrinsic of the protocol and can be done in different ways…

In my point of view, is an abuse of dominant position or a cartel situation and governments has to act and clearly say this is ILLEGAL! (or IMMORAL ).

As end users we do not have any “claim” method…

I can’t understand why Europeans or world GSM citizens we do not unite against abusive roaming practices.