Repairs to Android smartphones cost wireless carriers $2 billion per year according to a new year-long WDS study that tracked 600,000 support calls around the globe. Android’s popularity and the introduction of a number of low-cost smartphones has put a strain on the wireless business model, WDS noted in its report. “Deployment by more than 25 OEMs and lower-cost product coming to market is leading to higher than average rates of hardware failures and, in turn, return and repair costs.” 12.6% of all technical support calls related to Android in the study were for hardware failures related to the touchscreen, buttons, speakers, microphones and battery performance. Just 9.3% of Windows Phone, 8% of iOS calls and 5.5% of BlackBerry calls were related to hardware failures. Read on for more.

“One thing we must be absolutely clear on is that our analysis does not find any inherent fault with the Android platform,” WDS vice president of Marketing Tim Deluca-Smith said. “Its openness has enabled the ecosystem to grow to a phenomenal size, at a phenomenal rate, and it’s this success that is proving challenging … The Android customer experience differs enormously between devices and this means that the way in which Android devices are retailed and supported must consider factors such as the hardware build and quality of components.”

WDS’s study took place between July 2010 and August 2011 in Europe, North America South Africa and Australia. The full press release follows below.

Android Device Returns Cost Operators USD$2 Billion Per Year

WDS study finds operators struggling to keep pace with rapidly growing Android ecosystem

Poole, UK – 3rd November 2011:  The return and repair of Android smartphone devices is costing mobile operators as much as USD$2 billion per year as they try to evolve their customer service strategies to keep pace with the rapidly growing ecosystem.
These are the key findings of a study – “Controlling the Android” – by wireless experience management experts WDS. The study analyzes over 600,000 technical support calls that the WDS teams around the world have handled in the last 12 months.
Taking a comprehensive view of the four leading mobile operating systems, the study finds that fragmentation has led to a higher than average propensity for hardware failure on Android-based devices: 14% of technical support calls on Android relate to hardware, versus 11% for Windows Phone, 7% for iOS and 6% for BlackBerry OS.
“One thing we must be absolutely clear on,” says Tim Deluca-Smith, Vice President of Marketing at WDS, “is that our analysis does not find any inherent fault with the Android platform. Its openness has enabled the ecosystem to grow to a phenomenal size, at a phenomenal rate, and it’s this success that is proving challenging.”
The report found that the introduction of low-cost hardware, a variety of software customizations and the process for delivering OS updates to consumers were all resulting in operators’ retail operations and their return and repairs processes being stretched.
“Many operators are treating Android as a standard implementation with a consistent customer experience. Given its nature, this of course isn’t the case. The Android customer experience differs enormously between devices and this means that the way in which Android devices are retailed and supported must consider factors such as the hardware build and quality of components,” adds Deluca-Smith.
Impact of returns on device profitability
Hardware faults are of particular concern to carriers because they are very expensive to fix. Software or configuration faults can typically be rectified by the customer service representative remotely, either through manual configuration or an over-the-air update. However, hardware faults often result in the device being returned and entered into an expensive reverse logistics process for repair or replacement.
“Android features heavily in almost all operators’ smartphone strategies. It’s clear from the evidence in this study that if they are to maximize their investment they must better manage how they bring Android products into their network, retail them and support them,” concludes Deluca-Smith.
In the short term, operator profitability can be improved by implementing the following changes:

• Improving device testing and the on-boarding processes when ranging Android products to minimize risk of hardware failure and assess the Total Cost of Ownership
• Analyzing and understanding the propensity for a hardware failure pre-launch to ensure customer support channels are populated with accurate support documentation and returns procedure
• Educating customers from the beginning of the sales process to better manage expectation of  experience, minimizing technical support calls

The “Controlling the Android” study is available to download here. The study took place using the WDS GlobalMine™ knowledge platform between July 2010 and August 2011 and covered 600,000 technical support calls taken by WDS across Europe, North America, South Africa and Australia.
WDS provides managed services dedicated to optimizing the mobile customer experience. The company works with more than 100 of the industry’s best known brands, helping the

When Apple first launched its iPhone in 2007, the odds were against it. Pundits, bloggers and even competitors found countless faults in the iPhone’s design and in Apple’s strategy. A new report from Reuters notes that one such competitor was BlackBerry maker Research In Motion. The report quotes an anonymous RIM employee as saying RIM thought the iPhone was “so badly flawed from day one,” and “users wanted great battery life, great security, great mail handling, minimal network use, and a great keyboard experience.” As it turns out, many users appear to have had different priorities. RIM wasn’t entirely wrong, of course, and the original iPhone was lacking in several key areas. While hindsight is 20-20 and the first-generation iPhone could have been better in countless ways, it was enough to propel Apple to its current position as the leader in smartphone profit share by a staggering margin.

[Via Business Insider]

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After last year’s embarrassment at SXSW, AT&T is going overboard to ensure a similar wireless network meltdown does not happen again this year at the annual technology conference in Austin, Texas. To avoid a second such disaster, AT&T is throwing a ton of cash and bringing in an equal amount of equipment for the SXSW conference including:

• Installing a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) at the Austin Convention Center. The DAS is comprised of 50 antenna nodes that provide the equivalent coverage of eight cell sites.
• Improving the cell sites in the surrounding area by utilizing 30MHz of spectrum for 3G instead of the standard 10MHz and upgrading the system to include the 850MHz band and HSPA.
• Bringing in three temporary cell sites that are positioned in areas expected to see high traffic.
• Improving the backhaul by beefing up the fiber optic connections that serve the eight cell sites of the DAS and the three temporary sites. According to sources within AT&T, the backhaul capacity has seen a fourfold increase.

The stakes are high for AT&T as a network failure could wipe away any gains in consumer confidence AT&T saw following its favorable review from PC World last week. With its reputation on the line, will AT&T and its 3G network rise to the occasion or will it crumble to its knees under the strain of a mob of iPhone-toting geeks? Predictions are welcome in the comments.

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Yep, looks like it’s that time of the month again. Comments and emails are pouring in about another BlackBerry network outage, this time apparently affecting all carriers across the US and Canada. BIS appears to be dead while BES users seem to be rolling along just fine. From what we can gather using our time line of “good lord, BIS is *&%!@#* again!” emails, it looks like problems were intermittent at first — delays and such — and now we’ve moved on to a full-on outage with no emails coming through at all. So tell us, if you can manage to stop pulling your hair out for a few seconds, where are you and how’s your Berry?

Thanks to everyone who sent this in

Here we go again, people — you know the drill. Tips are flooding our inboxes from users across the US and Canada reporting some major BIS issues. Namely, it’s not working. We’ve heard from several Rogers users up in Canada as well as tons of AT&T and Verizon customers here in the US. Claims range from intermittent service interruptions to full-on “all is lost, my ‘Berry is dead” reports. Roll call… Is your ‘Berry alive?

The past month or so have not been kind to AT&T’s wireless networks. Constant and often major network outages have been rolling across the country for the better part of a month now and these mounting issues come on top of ongoing complaints regarding AT&T’s ever-slowing 3G network. Not good. An anonymous tipster brings news of this latest major network issue, affecting Philadelphia and the surrounding area. The symptoms this time around include the inability to hear the party on the other end of the line during outbound and inbound calls. We’re going to go out on a limb here and say it’s pretty important to, you know, hear the person you’re talking to. The good news for those affected: AT&T is well aware of the problem and hopefully it will be resolved in a timely manner. Hit the jump for the full AT&T ticket.

Clarify Ticket: CM20090116_5023387 Philadelphia Area
CTS Ticket: TT000009455966
Status: Update
Severity: Major
Start Time: 1/16/2009 6:35 AM
ETTR:
End Time:
Originated By: BMG-Greensboro
Complaint Type: Voice
Region: NorthEast
Market: Philadelphia, and surrounding area’s
Problem Description: Callers cannot hear other party , whether outbound or inbound calls.
Common Denominator:
Current VLR Address: 12404492840
Current VLR Location: AT&T – Lucent – Philadelphia, PA
Is this associated to a specific area: Yes
If “Yes” what City/State & Cellsite(s): Current VLR Address: 12404492840
Current VLR Location: AT&T – Lucent – Philadelphia, PA – Philsdelphia Area
Is there a specific NPA NXX associated: No
If “Yes” list NPA NXX:
Is there a common LRN: No
If “Yes” list LRN:
Call Flow: Mobile – Mobile
Technology: BOTH
Provide ticket examples:
CM20090116_5023387
cm20090116_5023388
CM20090116_5030328
CM20090116_5030326
CM20090116_5029287
CM20090116_5023390
CM20090116_5029288
CM20090116_5029286
CM20090116_5029285
CM20090116_5029284
CM20090116_5035109
CM20090116_5018938
CM20090116_5039494
CM20090116_5025295
CM20090116_5037414
CM20090116_5030770
CM20090116_5037415
CM20090116_5020680
CM20090116_5025296
CM20090116_5037416
CM20090116_5035110
CM20090116_5029290
CM20090116_5029806
Submitter Name & Contact Info:
[redacted]
[redacted]@att.com
336-[redacted]
If Severity is SIR click on link below:
NSS Update: Phila Technical Assistance Group (TAG) and the engineers are working one way audio issue .
Teams Engaged: Phila Technical Assistance Group (TAG) and the engineers are working issue.
Provide More Examples: No
NSS Accepted Trend: Yes
Root Cause: TO BE DETERMINED.
Archived Trend: No
NSS Team: Area Complaints
CARE Resolution Confirmed: No

Just one short week after AT&T suffered a major network outage across much of the northeast and beyond, reports are flooding our inbox yet again complaining of problems. This time, only data seems to be affected but reports are coming in from up and down the east coast. We’re still sitting pretty in the NYC area with no problems connecting via 3G, but plenty of readers are complaining of repeated error messages when attempting to connect. Voice seems to be unaffected but if you live on the east coast and you were planning to stay on top of Apple’s keynote at Macworld later today, AT&T may have other plans for you. Unless you have a buddy you can call to keep you on top of the reports, you may want to find a computer until the issues are resolved. We wonder if a power outage will be to blame, as was reported last week. So, east coasters, how you holding up? Drop us a line below in the comments if you’ve been affected.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Yesterday we broke the news of a massive AT&T network outage that came at one of the worst possible times – right smack in the middle of Wal-Mart’s iPhone 3G launch. Users from various regions throughout the eastern United States were reporting communication interruptions ranging from dropped calls to the complete inability to send/receive any voice or data. According to a later report from Chicago’s Sun Times, the cause of the massive network trauma was a power outage originating in Bloomfield, Michigan. The explanation seems a bit curious however, as some users in affected areas were reporting that their service was working fine – the Sun Times even quoted a couple as saying that while driving together in the same car, the husband’s phone was completely dead while the wife had no service problems at all.

While the bulk of comments were from areas that would certainly be affected such as Michigan, Wisconsin Illinois and the surrounding areas, we also received plenty of reports from up and down the east coast. AT&T customers from as far north as Rochester, NY to as far south as Florida were commenting and sending emails about their inability to make data and/or voice connections. A spokeswoman from AT&T later stated that “virtually all service traffic” was back up and running around 9:00 pm local time, yet we were still getting reports of network troubles well beyond midnight. Whatever the case may be however, AT&T seems to be back in business this morning as reports of connection issues have slowed to a halt.

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Word is out on the T-Mobile forums that POP3/IMAP email on the G1 is a big fail. People are reporting that they experience connection errors 95% of the time they check their email, email is not sending or sending as null, and forget about receiving — not happening. The problem looks to be across the board and is not tied any single email provider. Some people report that resetting the phone will re-establish the email connection for a single time before it fails again. Not surprisingly, Gmail is reported to be working just fine. A T-Mobile representative has responded on the forum and said that “This is being reported” and “will be researched with a high priority.” He also noted that this is not the first time they have seen a similar problem,

“We used to see similar errors and symptoms with the old MyEmail service and the new Consumer Email Client.  Those are found on regular phones, but do encounter issues when there are more than 100 e-mails on the POP server or when there are emails with relatively large attachments.”

He asked any G1 user with email issues for additional information to help T-Mobile troubleshoot this problem. Starting off with glitches in a major feature like email is not good and a lot of hate will be poured upon T-Mobile is they don’t resolve this issue quickly. We know that several BGR readers out there are rocking G1′s, so what’s the deal with your email? Does it work or is it major fail? Chime in and let us know. Ours is as shady as a dark alley in Pakistan…

Thanks, Kyle!

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