The Samsung Galaxy S24
ECERRL's profile

Mentor

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21 Messages

Friday, May 17th, 2013 2:38 PM

Galaxy SIII Petition to remove early termination fee

I firmly believe those of us unfortunate enough to have been contracted into two years with ATT's variant of the Galaxy SIII should be entitled to a free early termination. I am starting this thread to see how many supporters we can get. It is unprofessional, unreliable, and just plain unsafe of ATT.

Professor

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1.9K Messages

11 years ago

What exactly seems to be the problem? Are you having issues with your device? The community here is willing to help if you explain what's going on, that way we all can get the ball rolling on getting you back to enjoying your GS3 😃

Former Moderator

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773 Messages

11 years ago

ECERRL,

 

I love my Galaxy SIII! It has never given me any freezes, GPS has always worked wonderfully, never had trouble with downloads and is a nice looking unit.

 

 

James

Professor

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1.9K Messages

11 years ago

Ahh.. Now I see what this is about after looking at your other post... This is about your device getting updates in a timely manner?

Every U.S carrier tests the software before it is sent out to consumers. It allows the carrier to look for any obvious bugs that might impact performance, reliability etc. If the build sent out by Samsung has bugs that they need to address, then AT&T (or any carrier) sends it back to the manufacturer and repeats the process.

The carriers must ensure that the software upgrades they provide will allow the devices work perfectly on their networks. This issue will happen no matter what carrier you select. Some have longer wait times than AT&T.

Mentor

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21 Messages

11 years ago

All major US carriers have pushed out android 4.1.2 Some have even pushed out premium suite with Multi-View. If you truly enjoy your SIII without the updated security and features.. you sir are a clown. The phone has many more capabilites and after extensive research and phone time with reps from ATT, Samsung, and Google all the fingers and blame point to ATT. Stop feeding customers with that corporate crock of an excuse because some of us are more educated than you. You just got owned.

Professor

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1.9K Messages

11 years ago

I am a madam, lets get that straight first. 😛

And again, all carriers have to ensure that the software updates they provide will not impact performance. The "other" carriers you are referring to pushed the update out because they deemed it not to impact on performance and works flawlessly on the network.

Would you rather have a update full of bugs or one that is done right? It's a long wait I understand, but it's to save people a few headaches that can happen.

If your big about security, unlocked devices purchased from the manufacturer (for example the HTC One from HTC for 579.99) allows you to get the updates without the carrier having to test.

Apple is also an exception to the rule since they make both the software and hardware.

If you believe that another carrier is the solution, that's not really true, as they go through the same process.

Mentor

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21 Messages

11 years ago

It is true because they have ALL pushed the update.

Mentor

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21 Messages

11 years ago

The tmobile firmware update has also been ported over to the att variant of the sIII.. why does THEIR software work on YOUR device that supposedly "needs to be tested"

Mentor

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21 Messages

11 years ago

Because it didnt need to be injected with att's crapware first.

Scholar

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129 Messages

11 years ago

Thanks for your response Evandela, but we all already understand the process flow.

 

      I think @ECERRL's concern is more along the lines of the end result of your process taking so long (much longer than the rest of your industry, by the way) to deliver one very time-sensitive aspect of this- security fixes. Every major release of Android (and iOS, and Windows Phone, etc.) contain security fixes and patches for known and potential threats, and the longer the corrective measures (contained in the updates) are delayed, the greater and more risk is introduced- which is a dangerous situation for all involved.

       So let's talk about risks, and risk management. The risk begins initially with the device and user infected, placing the user's privacy and personal data/files at risk; which is a situation that is able to be handled effectively when it is one customer, or a handful of customers- but remember, the entire population of non-updated devices are actually at risk of infection.  Now consider that at some point, a malware author will realize this, and as he/she always works to infect as many devices as possible, he/she might begin to look for commonalities between the devices; there's the base software the devices are all running, but there is also one common network (with the same protocols and underlying language) connecting all of these devices. So the formula for maximum delivery would become very simple at that point- infect a device, then penetrate the network to spread the infection. The scale could be immense, and while it has not happened yet, the risk is present, and every delay is playing with fire. Now I am sure you have backend support in place to prevent such a wildfire from occuring, but I would caution that your firewalls and anti-viral packet analyses are very likely focused on if the network itself is the end target, but what if it were simply the means of delivery, and the infection could pose as an upload to an url or something along those lines - would the backend support be effective (most likely not, or Dropbox would not work over your network)?  

         I do not point all of this out to scare anyone, but I work in risk management and am merely concerned that AT&T's view on this issue has been particularly one-sided, if we take the cookie-cutter narrative that the update process stalls because of error and problem and network deterioration factor testing at face value. Ironically by focusing only on the update package as released by the manufacturer (before infection risk can even really be known), the process is actually exponentially increasing infection risk in the name of protection!  You see AT&T's protection is centered around the network itself, and NOT its end-users- the subscribers (customers who are paying for protected access to the service the network provides) with the devices who actually face the risk of infection and of privacy compromise.

 

Guidelines>

 

          I could never let my company face such a potentiality as this (or I would be and should be fired), and am frankly surprised that this situation exists at all.

 

So what is my answer? Revamp your process (a mirror of Google's and Twitter's own):

     First receive the update file from the OEM, do the initial network compliance tests, and push on to subscribers while also initiating internal vulnerability testing (focusing on the devices itself), then release low-level security patch updates as risks are discovered and solved. Rinse and repeat...

"pushing" the update really has to involve nothing more than hosting the file at the specified url, and having the software know where to look for it. 

Divide the testing engineers into teams focused on aspects such as application compatibility, network compatibility, and infection/penetration risk, and working concurrently in the issue identification phase (only the actual solutions are part of the entire ecosystem).

set regular deadlines for solution releases

 

I think you would find a quicker (and more importantly) and more protective and effective solution, and would find that you had the support and loyalty of a much happier customer base (who are not constantly weighing the cost of an ETF vs. living in the fear of how unsafe your device actually is)

 

-Steve

Scholar

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129 Messages

11 years ago

Lastly, I could buy the whole "...[software update] that is done right" argument if they were released without major bugs, but I actually have yet to experience that. It really does not seem that the users are the real focus of this whole process.

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