Limited comment on "phantom data" reports can hurt image of nascent platform
Microsoft remains frustratingly tight-lipped about a number of reports of users of Windows Phone 7-powered smartphones reporting excessive amounts of data usage that seem to be happening without the users’ knowledge. It’s been called “phantom data” in some reports. The reports have been anecdotal so it’s hard to know how widespread they might be, but Microsoft’s silence on the issue isn’t helping the situation.
On a number of web forums, users are reporting their smartphones are sending or receiving data at a rate of 2-5 megabytes (MB) per hour even when they are idle. This report from the BBC is typical of the coverage. A poster named “Julie G” writes on Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows that she got a notice from her carrier, AT&T, that she was about to exceed her monthly data limit of 2 gigabytes (GB). Among the unusual activity on Julie’s phone was on Dec. 23 when she put the device on airplane mode to stop the data stream. “I turned airplane mode off briefly on December 23rd and the phone sent 400 MB of data,” she noted.
AT&T told the woman there was nothing they could do to figure out what was going on with her phone. When I contacted AT&T today they referred me to Microsoft. Microsoft told the BBC, “We are investigating this issue to determine the root cause and will update with information and guidance as it becomes available.” When I reached out to Microsoft this morning, they were still in no comment mode.
While much has been written and posted about this phantom data issue, a lot of the chatter is echo chamber coverage, in which writers, including moi, are left to just repeat what others have already written. T-Mobile, the other U.S. carrier selling WP7 devices, had not yet replied to my request for comment. While a commentor on the Seattle P.I. blog said they weren’t having the phantom data problem on their WP7 phone on T-Mobile, that’s only anecdotal information.
Of course, we in the media always want an immediate response from the companies we cover, especially in the Internet age. But there are a number of reasons why Microsoft needs to get out in front of this problem and be more responsive. Windows Phone 7, while arguably a well designed and executed platform, hasn’t quite taken the world by storm. A comparison of WP7 phones to Apple’s iPhone is unfair because of the unique relationship Apple has with its customers, and Microsoft has a strategy to build sales by adding it to more networks by the first half of this year, and onto more devices. But Microsoft has invited skepticism about WP7’s success by failing to share specific sales figures. Sure, they probably don’t match those of iPhone or Google Android, but Microsoft could provide whatever context it wants to their sales figures as long as they provide the figures. Platitudes like Steve Ballmer’s CES pronouncement that “The reaction to the product has been great,” don’t cut it.
Chances are this glitch can be fixed with a software update and I trust Microsoft is working in good faith to address the problem. But in the absence of substantive comment from Microsoft about this “phantom data” problem, speculation fills the void and it may not be favorable to them. Confining their public response to a brief “we are investigating this issue” comment doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the nascent WP7 offering at a time it needs consumer confidence most.
