Jan 17, 2011 09:34 GMT  ·  By

South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung has been late with the delivery of a software update for the Galaxy S devices it launched on the US market, and some new info meant to explain why the OS upgrade was pushed back emerged recently.

Apparently, the costs that the deployment of this software would involve determined US carriers to stay away from delivering it until now.

Those users who purchased a Galaxy S device in the US are quite angry with Samsung and its partner carriers not offering the software update for their customers, and some news on a class action lawsuit against T-Mobile and the handset vendor emerged.

According to a recent post on XDA-Developers (via Android Police), the main reason for which Galaxy S devices in the United States are stuck with the Android 2.1 OS flavor would indeed be the cost that the delivery of this update would imply:

When a carrier decides to sell a phone, a contract is usually written between the phone manufacturer and the carrier. In this contract, the cost of updates (to the carrier) is usually outlined. Updates are usually broken into several types: critical updates, maintenance updates, and feature updates. [...]

Finally, feature updates add some new feature in software that wasn’t present before. Critical updates are usually free, maintenance updates have some maintenance fee associated with them, and feature updates are usually costly.

All OS upgrades are considered to be feature update, and this is the main issue when it comes to the Android 2.2 Froyo software update for the Galaxy S handsets in the United States.

Carriers almost never want to incur the cost of a feature update because it is of little benefit to them, adds little to the device, and involves a lot of testing on the carrier end.

Apparently, while vendors like HTC or Motorola would gladly release the software in the nearest time frame possible (for some devices, of course), since the Android Open Source Project imposes it, Samsung does not see things with the same eyes.

With most manufacturers, such as HTC, Motorola, etc. This is fine and considered a maintenance upgrade. Samsung, however, considers it a feature update, and requires carriers to pay a per device update fee for each incremental Android update.

This is where it all started, it seems, as carriers were not happy with Samsung's decision to charge them for the upgrade, and that they decided to stay out of it.

Now, here’s where the politics come in: most U.S. carriers aren’t very happy with Samsung’s decision to charge for Android updates as feature updates, especially since they are essentially charging for the Android Open Source Project’s efforts, and the effort on Samsung’s end is rather minimal.

As a result of perhaps, corporate collusion, all U.S. carriers have decided to refuse to pay for the Android 2.2 update, in hopes that the devaluation of the Galaxy S line will cause Samsung to drop their fees and give the update to the carriers.

Provided that things are indeed so, Samsung would have a lot to lose if it does not reach a consensus with wireless carriers, since it end users would eventually choose handsets that receive the software updates in due time.

Galaxy S proved a very popular smartphone all around the world last year, and especially in the United States, where it was picked up by all four major carriers, as well as by some smaller wireless services providers.

As stated above, the lack of the Froyo update for Galaxy S determined some users take other measures against Samsung and some US carriers, something that might determine the company to change its mind about the update.

However, there's no telling whether this would indeed be the reason for which the Froyo update was delayed so much in the US, so we'll take the explanation with a grain of salt for the time being.