Carrier IQ: Which wireless carrier is the biggest user?

In response to a request for more information from Senator Al Franken, AT&T, Sprint, Samsung, HTC, and Carrier IQ have responded with letters detailing their use of Carrier IQ's software on their handsets. Sprint is by far the biggest user of the software, admitting to installations on 26 million devices. Additionally, HTC has, for the first time, directly and publicly addressed the fact that Carrier IQ blames it for the insecure log files found on its devices — though not in a way that's likely to satisfy unhappy users. Another surprise: AT&T's network and dropped calls reporting app, Mark the Spot, utilizes Carrier IQ (though not on the iPhone).

All told, it's safe to estimate that Carrier IQ's software is installed on over 30 million US devices and now, for the first time, the companies involved are publicly naming them. We break it all down for you below.

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AT&T

AT&T says that its usage of Carrier IQ's software is limited strictly to "collect diagnostic information about its network." AT&T also lists all of the handsets it sells that have Carrier IQ's software installed: the Pantech Pursuit II, Pantech Breeze 3, Pantech P5000, Pantech Pocket, Sierra Wireless Shockwave, LG Thrill, ZTE Avail, ZTE Z331, Xperia Play, Motorola Atrix 2, and the Motorola Bravo. The software is present on the HTC Vivid, LG Nitro, and Samsung Skyrocket as well, but on those three devices the network says Carrier IQ's software "has not been activated due to the potential for the software agent to interfere with the performance of those devices."

Another new revelation is that AT&T is using Carrier IQ in its own branded software called Mark the Spot, an app designed to allow smartphone users to "provide feedback on network user experience to AT&T." In other words, it's the software that many BlackBerry and Android users have been installing and using to help tell AT&T about problems. If you're not fond of Carrier IQ, it's probably a good idea to uninstall it. As for iPhone users, AT&T says that it has never used Carrier IQ in the iOS version of the software.

In total, AT&T reports that it has 575,000 devices actively sending the carrier data using Carrier IQ's software, out of an install-base of 900,000 devices. The carrier says that accounts for about one percent of its total market.

Sprint

Sprint reports that Carrier IQ software is installed on a whopping 26 million devices on its network. However, Sprint also says that at any given time not all of those devices are actively sending data, instead they only report when Sprint's network "tasks" the handset to send in information. At any given time, Sprint says, 1.3 million devices may be actively doing that. Sprint also says that it only uses Carrier IQ software for network diagnostics, which it has been doing since 2006.

For the complete article, visit AT&T, Sprint, Samsung and HTC detail Carrier IQ installations on theverge.com.

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