Mobile operators fail to respond to MTN HTC Android announcement
MTN South Africa announced on Tuesday, 7 December 2010, that they are collaborating with HTC to offer firmware over the air (FOTA) updates for HTC’s Android smartphones.
FOTA allows updates to be downloaded directly to the device through either MTN’s mobile network or a Wi-Fi connection. This lets people upgrade their phones directly without requiring a PC or going into a retail store.
Leaf International Communications, local distributors of HTC products in South Africa, have been promising FOTA since August this year, explaining that arrangements to have the downloads zero-rated were causing the delay.
A zero-rated download means that the operator won’t charge the end-user for the data consumed by the download.
No zero-rated upgrades
It seems as though attempts to free the consumer of the data costs of downloading updates for their HTC Android devices were unsuccessful.
“FOTA downloads are not zero-rated as customers will be charged from their data bundles or at R2/MB if no data bundles are loaded,” MTN said.
“The data file footprint is small and is expected to range from 2KB to 2MB depending on the amount of updates to be downloaded. These updates happen in a controlled manner and give clients the option to download them either via 3G or Wi-Fi hotspots,” said MTN.
MTN said that they have no plans to zero-rate the download.
MTN’s competitors fail to respond
It would seem as though users of HTC devices have no choice but to go to MTN for their updates as Vodacom subscribers aren’t likely to receive the service anytime soon.
“We are currently in discussions with HTC but we have no firm plans in place for this service,” said Vodacom spokesperson Nomsa Thusi.
Neither 8ta nor Cell C commented by the time of publication as to whether they will provide FOTA services .
Upgrade schedule
Managing director of Leaf, Quinton Leigh, predicted that MTN would update their HTC devices in the following order: Desire, Legend, Hero, Wildfire.
He explained that it’s not just a matter of dumping the ROMs on the server and pushing updates out to devices as each ROM must be approved by the operator.
MTN said that they expect the first roll-out to the HTC Desire devices to commence on 17 December 2010.
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