To me the puzzling thing in all of this, is why it is taking the mobile operators so long to roll out some of these basic services that mterhonen and r.haris refer to. After all, operators can’t be blind to the fact that consumers might upgrade more readily to new handsets if they had an easy way of getting their contacts, pictures, games, etc onto the new handsets. They also can’t be oblivious to the number of ‘no-fault-found’ returns they have been getting as consumers struggle with performing basic functions on new ‘advanced’ handsets.

Granted, operators are wise to question whether firmware over the air update (FOTA) is a wise investment, and if so, whether it is they rather than the device manufacturers who ought to do the investing. But surely the case for automatic device detection (ADD) (instead of using up valuable customer service time getting the consumer to figure out exactly what device he or she has) should also be a no-brainer.

Of course the next logical step beyond ADD is automatic device configuration (ADC). But just how automatic this ought to be and what code of conduct operators ought to abide by when configuring newly discovered devices on their networks are issues open to debate.

the ethics issue is definately one that customers should be aware of. Customized handset marketing campaigns are being based on data reteived by ADD to compare current usage patterns with potential future usage. The question is, does the customer really want to be told what to buy ?

I definitely agree that a very "quick win" would be the automatic configuration of the handset for basic operation on the host network: SMS gateway, MMS/GPRS settings, voicemail speed dial etc.
However, most networks that I've had experience of already provide this and have for some time: e.g. UK Vodafone will send a configuration SMS to your handset to set this up - it's handset-specific so you need to know the model of your phone, but it does work. You can also put in your mobile number on their webpage (assuming you can find anything on there!) and request such a configuration SMS yourself.
WinMo phones such as HTC's P3300 offer a network wizard that also preconfigures the handset for this.

There's a significant proportion of UK phone users who don't have MMS configured, for example: this stops dead any potential revenue from picture messaging...