The Real Story Behind the Carrier IQ Controversy

(Dec 15 2011) Smartphones

1. By Sheryl Kingstone, research director, and Brian Partridge, research VP, Yankee Group

   A mobile ecosystem firestorm started recently after security researcher Trevor Eckhart discovered that Carrier IQ’s software, running on his HTC Android device, was capturing the log files associated with keystrokes, phone numbers dialed and several other user actions—all without the explicit knowledge of the end-user. After Eckhart posted a YouTube video of the apparent keystroke logging and the difficulty in actually locating and removing the software, Carrier IQ was being labeled everything from a secret stalker to an evil genius out to collect and transmit personal user data to unnamed customers, who in turn could use it for any ends they wished.

   The truth at the heart of this scandal is far less nefarious. There is no evil here—only mistrust.  Yankee Group is a vocal advocate of the mobile ecosystem’s focus on improving QoE, as we believe user experience is the competitive battleground where customers will be won or lost in the future. In covering developments in this area, we have followed Carrier IQ’s intentions and planned use cases, and we believe Carrier IQ is, in actuality, helping operators improve the quality of experience (QoE) customers have on their networks. 

   Carrier IQ’s software is used by carriers such as Sprint and AT&T to collect and report network and device-specific data metrics to help them architect and optimize wireless networks and gain the critical device and user intelligence required to provide excellent customer care.  Consumers view consistent network service performance, fewer dropped calls/interruptions of service and consistent speed as the top three ingredients to ensure a positive network experience. Until now, no one cared to ask how the ecosystem met customer expectations. 

   While network operators struggle with data traffic growth and the influx of smarter devices, they must also race to maintain subscriber satisfaction and manage success. But with more subscribers comes more traffic, and this means customers can sometimes experience inconsistent service availability and performance due to network bottlenecks. Many times these quality-of-service (QoS) issues are not mapped to individual subscribers, making it impossible to quickly and proactively identify device performance issues such as battery drainage, application-specific challenges and/or connection issues such as dropped calls that must be corrected through traditional network management tools. These challenges create a blind spot for network operators that, until recently, stayed in the dark. 

   Carrier IQ was formed to solve that very issue and allow operators to understand the true QoE subscribers are having on their networks. 

   In Yankee Group’s consumer survey, 85 percent of respondents indicate they want contact centers to have immediate access to network information. We asked respondents to rank important attributes of a contact center in order of importance. While first contact resolution was the most important, with 70 percent of respondents placing it in their top three, remotely diagnosing issues came in third right behind the ability to empower agents with the authority to fix their problem. Carrier IQ’s software provides critical insights to a customer care operation by providing a detailed device profile, giving care agents proactive suggestions about how to improve experience. When a customer calls in with a battery issue, an agent can trace the problem to a recently downloaded power-hogging application and fix the issue on the spot.

   While subscriber data is necessary to providing good customer experience, Eckhart’s video did bring to light an issue with the way carriers and device manufacturers are using Carrier IQ. By embedding the software within the device without informing users of its presence, carriers simply served to reinforce the age-old notion that they can’t be trusted. Carriers must be more transparent in their dealings with customers. In fact, transparency is one of our criteria for good customer experience. 

   If carriers had informed users of the software’s presence and simply asked them to opt in to that level of care, the whole issue would never have come to a head. Carrier IQ says that gaining network-based data for planning, etc., requires only 5-10 percent opt-ins. While device-specific customer care data would require more, perhaps carriers could entice users with premium-level services promising an optimal level of care if they opt in. It could be a win-win for carriers and customers.

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