How Australians are accidentally breaking their phones

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 04 December 2007 18:52

Opinion and Analysis

Australia’s largest telecommunications company, Telstra, has released a report on the top five ways Australians are accidentally damaging their mobile phones, in what must be putting a smile on the dial of phone manufacturers who end up selling more phones.
Telstra has announced the weird and wonderful ways Australians are accidentally trashing their mobile phones as customers call about damage they’ve caused to their phone “which may void their warranty”.

Noting that there are now an estimated 20 million mobile phone services in Australia, Telstra says the number of calls reporting phone damage is “ever growing”, enabling Telstra to compile some interesting statistics.

Telstra says their customer service consultants have reported the five most common ways that Australians are accidentally damaging their phones. These are:

1. Driving off with a mobile left on the car roof
2. Damaged by water - including dropping it in the toilet and taking calls when in the rain
3. Sitting on the handset
4. Dropping a phone - most often on the footpath
5. Throwing a mobile - either on a desk, in a drawer, or to a friend

One thing to note about mobile phones from the experience of friends - if your phone is kept off after either turning itself off or being off when dropped into water and given a chance to dry out properly, whether assisted by a hair dryer and allowed to dry naturally, a number of mobile phones will actually come back to life and don't need replacing, although that's not true of all water damaged phones.

Peter Taylor, a Telstra spokesperson, explained that as the mobile phone is as essential an item as keys and wallets, it’s not surprising that “customers are finding new ways to accidentally damage their handsets in a variety of settings”, and outlined two more ways handsets have been damaged.

Taylor said that: "We've even heard from a customer who retrieved their Next G™ handset after losing it when back burning a sugar cane field. Incredibly the handset still worked, even though it was a little scorched and melted in place”, and continued that “the popularity of leather cases for mobile phones has seen a surprisingly high number of reports of phones being gnawed by the family pooch.”

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