Mobile Carriers Impose Handicaps On Smartphones 174
Nrbelex writes "A team at the University of Michigan and Microsoft Research has uncovered, for the first time, the frequently suboptimal network practices of more than 100 cellular carriers. By recruiting almost 400 volunteers to run an app on their phones that probes a carrier's networks, the team discovered, for example, that one of the four major U.S. carriers is slowing its network performance by up to 50 percent (PDF). They also found carrier policies that drained users' phone batteries at an accelerated rate, and security vulnerabilities that could leave devices open to complete takeover by hackers."
"Unauthorized Applications" (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wilfully drain batteries? (Score:5, Funny)
Mod this fella up... or kill him... he's a redshirt and is expendable.
Re:No names? (Score:4, Funny)
TFA states "Due to security and privacy concerns, we anonymize their names and label them as Carrier A and Carrier B."
Because corporations are people and people have a right to privacy.