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> firmware: why S/E is undesireable in the US
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I went to the T-mobile store near my house and he told me that they upgrade the phones over the air as well. I think the guy was an idiot, because the software on my old phone, the t68i, was never updated while i had it, and it did not have the newest firmware on it.
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Posted: 2003-08-22 01:35:50
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Those customer care ppl have no clue what they're talking about. FW uprades over the air are not possible and not even likely. Imagine if every phone worldwide would be upgraded without the owners even knowing about it! Massive operation at massive cost and zero customer happiness.
As for home flashing.... well if you find a way to do it safely, I am happy for you. Me myself... i am a moron on that field and would without a doubt fubar it badly, possibly destroying both my phone and my pc
So I very much prefer to go to an
servcie point and have them do it. If they f*ck up, I can at least claim a replacement phone coz they destroyed my property
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Posted: 2003-08-22 10:37:13
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Basically, there are no differences between upgrading the firmware on a cell-phone and flashing a bios on any type of computer...
And motherboard makers encourage you to do it your self, eventhough there may be risks of failure...
So I don't understand why we cannot legally do it for our phones.
Moreover, the "you could mess the whole gsm network if you do it" statement is a bit strange. How'd that be possible?..
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Posted: 2003-08-22 10:50:05
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@ fcd
Well, there is some differencesbetween flashing your BIOS and the phone. First of all most BIOS updates are performed with no other software running on the computer (i.e not updating from windows). Other programs runnig while updating could interfere with the flashing. Secondly you'll be using a cable to flash the bios, with a bad connection the phone could end up dead. Another potential problem would be people not reading the instructions careful enough (I've seen that quite a few times not with phone updating but in general). If someone tries to flash the phone without the phone battery being charged enough could ruin the phone if it runs out of power while flashing. Remember we're dealing with consumers (for example consumers who have flashing 00:00 clocks on their video all the time), not computer freaks or technical experts.
If someone tries to reverse engineer the software update and hacks it to do other things. Theoretically there is a possiblity for someone to mess with the networks.
[ This Message was edited by: ppcrockar on 2003-08-22 10:03 ]
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Posted: 2003-08-22 10:52:47
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Lots of devices that you can firmware upgrade keep a copy of the previous working firmware install untill it has booted successfully on the new install so that you can't f**k it up.
And some other deviced have a basic bootcode thats just enough to start the device and upgrade so if you fail you can always get to that point and easerly fix the failed upgrade with a new attempt.
Siemens S55 is user upgradable and siemens release the firmware upgrades on their webpage so it's possible with phones also not just
switches and other devices.
I still think it would be a great idea if
released an official cable that you could use to upgrade the phone with and had the software to do it with on their homepage.
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Posted: 2003-08-22 11:14:39
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Well all things considered I think its crap that SE wonīt offer FW-updates in the form of .exe-files like Siemens does!
Even if some all-thumbs users are bound to try updating via wireless connection even though itīs a known fact that flashing will reboot your device, (and guess what happens to the BT/IRDA connection then?
)
the total workload on SE service points will decrease, not increase.
As for tampering with the software.. like that would stop someone who REALLY wants to "hack" the phone..
It would be interesting to see actual case studies whether there are more Siemens than SE with modified software out there. I doubt it..
Just my 2 cents, cheers!
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Posted: 2003-08-22 11:35:01
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@dw
Yes I know that some devices has extra memory to keep the flash while you're uploading it. I have a great printserver made by Axis. You can just ftp to the printserver and just put the flash via ftp to it, and when it's finished uploading the prinstserver will copy it over the current firmware and then reboot. It works perfectly and very easy.
The question is how much the extra memory would cost to add to the phone. Everything extra would increase costs.
@ ThreeX
I don't think the workload on the SE service centers regarding flashing software is very high (maybe during the period of the T68m -> T68i upgrade). How many people are actually upgrading the software? My guess is that they aren't that many, disregard the relativly "few" people around here who always upgrades. Actually most people I know with SE phones (quite a few actually, might be due to my influence
) have never updated their phones software. My guess is that it's just a small fraction of the actual sold phones that are getting software upgrades.
The people who expirence problems leaves the phones to the service centers and they flash it or repair it or whatever without customers knowing it.
Sure I wouldn't mind being able to update the software by myself, but I do understand why SE wants the control over software upgrades.
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Posted: 2003-08-22 12:11:21
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Quote:
On 2003-08-22 12:11:21, ppcrockar wrote:
The people who expirence problems leaves the phones to the service centers and they flash it or repair it or whatever without customers knowing it.
I'm still waiting for my T68i to come back from software upgrade (due to it having early firmware with bugs in email client and mms function)
it's been gone over 6weeks now. It would have been so much nicer if
I could have done it my self w/o risking warranty.
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Posted: 2003-08-22 12:25:48
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@ dw
6 weeks, sounds like quite a long time. Maybe something went wrong during the flashing.
I always get my phone upgraded within 30 minutes. (Ok, one time they had a lot to do so I had to leave the phone there and then come back 5 hours later). But that's the longest I've had to wait for a software upgrade.
[ This Message was edited by: ppcrockar on 2003-08-22 11:37 ]
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Posted: 2003-08-22 12:36:52
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mabe he took it the a CPW shop that isnt a service centre and they had to post it away.
and all this talk of firmware hacking and revers engeneering remind me of project 5110 that was cool back in my nokia days
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Posted: 2003-08-22 12:58:44
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