Microsoft Explains Windows Phone 7 'Phantom Data' 270
Fuzzy Eric writes "Microsoft has confirmed that some handsets running its Windows Phone 7 software are sending and receiving 'phantom data.' The problem surfaced in early January with some owners of phones running Windows Phone 7, claiming that their phone was sending 'between 30 and 50MB of data' every day; an amount that would eat into a 1GB allowance in 20 days. Microsoft said its investigation found that most problems were caused by a unnamed 'third party' service. It said that the problem seemed to only affect 'a small (low single-digit) percentage of Windows Phone customers.'"
Re:NSA (Score:0, Interesting)
What a piece of crap. Or do you think the NSA is incapable of making sure any covert channels aren't accounted for when calculating traffic?
No, this is either MS trying to shift the blame away from them, or just trying to avoid litigation or offending some partner.
3rd Party? (Score:5, Interesting)
It gets better (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently* it's an external problem and there will be "no need for a system software update." [oneindia.in].
Makes you wonder about who can do what with your Windows Phone 7...
*As I noted in my submission. Which was earlier. WTF editors!?
They're not just pointing fingers (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm glad y'all RTFA and saw where it said
"We are in contact with the third party to assist them in making the necessary fixes," a spokesperson said. The firm also said that it was looking into "potential workarounds" until the issue was solved.
fwiw, there's evidence that one potential culprit was a yahoo mail client
Re:MS Fault Playbook: Two Answers (Score:5, Interesting)
We found the problem. It wasn't our fault, and it doesn't matter because it's not happening to anyone. (lie)
Until Microsoft say which service causes this (so it can be independently verified by users) then you just have to assume that it is a lie. Normally I like to give the benefit of the doubt (and it does seem feasible that a 3rd party app is responsible, but like you said, this follows the standard style of PR spin that most companies employ.
This would not be a problem if the mobile OS actually valued the customer over the developers and phone companies. My last Symbian phone prompted the user to give permission to any app that wanted to access the Internet. No spyware under the guise of a game here, no 3rd party services chewing up quota, no apps being just thin layers over websites.
I hate seeing that circle animation that says data access is happening on my iPhone for something that shouldn't need it. Even worse, I hate the fact that on the iPhone the developer can turn off that display so you don't know if any connection has occured. Evil. I presume that the Windows Phone does the same thing.
Re:"a small (low single-digit) percentage" (Score:5, Interesting)
This is how typically MS depicts success when it isn't. 1.5 million Windows phones have been sold to retailers and carriers, not to consumers. Considering that Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC, HP , LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm all made phones and they were launched on the networks: AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, Telus, Bell Canada and SingTel, 1.5 million is abysmal. That's on average 100,000 per carrier and 160,000 per manufacturer. Remember that number also represents units that were given to MS employees. If I understand the process, MS employees could buy a phone and the company would reimburse them.
In this history of MS, they launched the Zune the same way. They showed great sales figures for the 2006 holiday season but what they didn't make clear was those were units shipped to retailers not sold to consumers. They also didn't disclose that for several months after that they shipped virtually no Zunes because the retailers were fully stocked. In the end, retailers had to get rid of the Zunes mostly at huge discounts.
Re:"Unnamed third party service" being M$ (Score:5, Interesting)
If At&T is the primary service then Windows Live is a third party to that service. Since Microsoft did not name themselves as the culprit, they are in fact an Unnamed service. And of course why would Microsoft want to piss off their own their own management, or worse, to let potential buyers know what the real problem is?
Carrier? (Score:4, Interesting)