Virgin Mobile Does NOT Want Us To Root

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Guys (and Gals), you were baited. Every carrier has this official stance, every single one of them. They try to discourage you by threatening to not assist in warranty returns, and may even deny tech support.

And that's OK, it's their right to do so.

PC Mag got you to click. That's exactly what they wanted to happen, and why they focused on Virgin Mobile while their name was at the front of every Android user's mind. It's easy to do, and sometimes it just happens, so I'm not gonna hate on them. But don't forget that this is how it's always been, always will be, and it's the same everywhere

 

[houckinternet]

They do make chips that are physically altered if you access a preset circuit reference; while keeping functional ability. This could be used to see if phones have been rooted therefore giving company's a way to refuse bricked devices because of
modding.

I wouldn't root if I could get stock apps off my phone, move any app to sd, customize status bar and enable jit, ect...
we don't need root, just are phone's to not be locked down so tight!

 

[lou61166]

Could they? Yes.
Should they? No.

Data is data, we pay for it, we should be allowed to use it.


VM really hasn't said much about tethering really, neither has Sprint.
The one company who does make a big deal of it, is AT&T and they make a big deal out of it on your phone and home internet because they simply don't have the bandwidth onto the backbone, or in their towers. They also throttle it to make more money.

Sprint on the other hand, owns a major portion of the backbone, so as long as their towers keep up, data is less an issue. Also, this is Sprints biggest advantage over them.

Where are you getting this info from,cell networks rely on frequencies without enough available to handle the customer base the network could come to a crawl if overloaded with bandwidth hogs,so your back bone theory holds no truth, only in a wired network would a larger backbone benefit,and pay for data or not it is still their network you are accessing they have the rights to do want they want.

 

[trey3]

VM will never officially support rooting a phone, ever. You can send all the petitions you want but rooting will never be endorsed. It is a matter of support and money. They simply do not want to deal with all of the users bricking their phones or spending hours debugging a problem the user has created by rooting their phone.

 

[JerryScript]

All unlimited plans in the US fall under the "fair use policy" and are in no way truly unlimited data plans. If ur use goes outside the limits of "fair use" the carrier is within their rights to drop data or limit it. All interested in really knowing what is really meant by "unlimited data" should Google "unlimited data fair use policy". You can use what ever u want as long as u stay under the radar, per say.

While this is a slightly different issue, I do have a problem with carrier's tethering stance. If I download an image to my phone, the carriers each offer methods and software to move that image file from my phone to my PC. So what's the difference if I tether and download it straight to my PC? It's the same file, downloaded over the same network.

Data is data.

 

[JerryScript]

VM will never officially support rooting a phone, ever. You can send all the petitions you want but rooting will never be endorsed. It is a matter of support and money. They simply do not want to deal with all of the users bricking their phones or spending hours debugging a problem the user has created by rooting their phone.

There is no reason they cannot give you a rooted phone to begin with. You have the administrators account on your computer, there should be a similar account/setting on your phone.

 

[larryc]

It's worth reading up on the Carterphone decision Carterfone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Before this landmark case 1968, you could only connect AT&T telephones to the phone network. This decision opened the door for 3rd party equipment manufacturers, MCI, Sprint, etc.
Virgin Mobile is trying to go back to pre-1968 days.

 

[JerryScript]

It's worth reading up on the Carterphone decision Carterfone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Before this landmark case 1968, you could only connect AT&T telephones to the phone network. This decision opened the door for 3rd party equipment manufacturers, MCI, Sprint, etc.
Virgin Mobile is trying to go back to pre-1968 days.

Very good info, thanks for posting this!

Apple just released the unlocked iphone direct to consumers:
http://allthingsd.com/20110614/you-can-now-buy-an-unlocked-iphone-4-though-you-might-want-to-think-twice/
[URL="https://www.apple.com/search/Unlocked-iPhone-4,-16GB-Black#mn_p]Apple Store: iPhone 4 - Unlocked (GSM)[/URL]

Unlocking is not equal to rooting, but even so, Virgin Mobile is going in the wrong direction.

 

[obijohn]

The Virgin Mobile spokesperson said that rooting "puts our network in jeopardy." LOL. Or rageface. Maybe both. I guess they might fear that accessing the Hotspot feature would put their network in jeopardy if abused, but that can be accessed with Anycut on a non-rooted phone. Somebody needs to get a clue. This is clearly FUD and/or marketing spin. Yeah, leaning towards rageface here.

Skype puts their network in more jeopardy than anything done with root. Jeez.

 

[anon(182107)]

There is no reason they cannot give you a rooted phone to begin with. You have the administrators account on your computer, there should be a similar account/setting on your phone.

They should just lock down all bootloaders globally..why did I just say that..across all android devices and charge a root fee the same way they charge for tethering. If you pay they would unlock the bootloader. Problem is that what proof is there that people would pay for rooting access when no one pays for tethering access.

The point is I believe more fees and money would get the carriers to shut up.

Sent from my Optimus V using Tapatalk

 

[mmarz]

They should just lock down all bootloaders globally..why did I just say that..across all android devices and charge a root fee the same way they charge for tethering. If you pay they would unlock the bootloader. Problem is that what proof is there that people would pay for rooting access when no one pays for tethering access.

The point is I believe more fees and money would get the carriers to shut up.

Sent from my Optimus V using Tapatalk

OR we hack their systems for free, tether for free, and flip them the bird...for free. You give them an inch...and they'll bill you for it. I can't believe that some are willing to pay a smartphone fee. That is criminal.

 

[Irate Iguana]

:/

 

[bdfull3r]

:/

That is a big no-no

 

[asadullah]

Has anyone else sent vm or motorola a tweet expressing how much much they would like unlocked boot loaders on future devices?

 

[JerryScript]

Has anyone else sent vm or motorola a tweet expressing how much much they would like unlocked boot loaders on future devices?

I guess I'll have to get a Twitter account, and after avoiding out for so long.

 

[Retorrent]

:/

All I know is that if its boot locked they can forget getting a lot of sales from people who like to root their phones. They can market it as an pure android experiences all they want but unless its free to be rooted then its not a pure experience and no enthusiast I know will buy a locked down device. If I wanted a locked down phone I would go back to my iphone.

 

[lou61166]

All I know is that if its boot locked they can forget getting a lot of sales from people who like to root their phones. They can market it as an pure android experiences all they want but unless its free to be rooted then its not a pure experience and no enthusiast I know will buy a locked down device. If I wanted a locked down phone I would go back to my iphone.

Do not be so sure about poor sales,it's the price of the service that people will look at, not if the phone can be rooted or not,and as i can see VM has Verizon and AT&T beat by half.why did you get rid of your iphone for the V,i will bet it was the value of the service.

 

[LeslieAnn]

Where are you getting this info from,cell networks rely on frequencies without enough available to handle the customer base the network could come to a crawl if overloaded with bandwidth hogs,so your back bone theory holds no truth, only in a wired network would a larger backbone benefit,and pay for data or not it is still their network you are accessing they have the rights to do want they want.

I mentioned the towers, which are the cell network.

As for their rights vs ours...
That is covered in the contract, and no, tethering isn't allowed, but so long as they aren't having issues, they won't spend the time or effort to stop it. It's sort of like speeding on the highway, everyone knows it happens, but as long as you aren't excessive, most of the time the cops won't bother you. Even though we have the technology to make sure no one ever speeds ever again, but we don't, even though speeding is illegal, because it isn't cost effective... Yet.

 

[Retorrent]

Do not be so sure about poor sales,it's the price of the service that people will look at, not if the phone can be rooted or not,and as i can see VM has Verizon and AT&T beat by half.why did you get rid of your iphone for the V,i will bet it was the value of the service.

Well your right on the first part the second is I wanted an new phone because my 3gs was outdated and didn't want to spend all that money on the iphone 4. The V turned out to be a good phone only thing that sucked was the lack of flash, but coming from an iphone that is nothing new to me.

 

[trey3]

There is no reason they cannot give you a rooted phone to begin with. You have the administrators account on your computer, there should be a similar account/setting on your phone.

good point. best chance is to convince VM that these are mobile computers that can make phone calls. but, as of now, the phones are tied to the network in that you just can't buy '3g' time like you buy DSL (or whatever) like you do for your computer.

i agree, it would be silly if my DSL carrier said i had to buy their computer and if changed the OS, i would be beaten with a hose.

perhaps the outcry needs a bigger scope in that carriers provide the connections and others provide the phones (sorta happens now, but more in general). but as long as people are spending $200 for a phone and $2k for contract, i dunno ....