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| Germany wants mobile security updates to last for 7 years |
Germany's federal government wants to defend strict environmental regulations for smartphones and tablets in negotiations with the European Union Commission.
As part of the negotiations, the government is calling on the European Union to order security updates and spare parts for smartphones for a period of seven years.
A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Economics said spare parts and safety improvements should be made available for seven years.
In addition, spare parts should be provided at reasonable prices. With these demands, the German government evaded the proposal recently announced by the European Union Commission.
The commission plans to order upgrades and parts within five years, while parts for tablet computers will be available for six years.
He also hopes to force manufacturers to announce parts prices and not raise prices afterwards. But don't plan on the prices.
Regarding the speed of delivery of spare parts, the federal government hopes to put in place stricter regulations.
The committee's current schedule for the longest delivery time is five business days. A spokesman for the Ministry of Economy said that this should be considered. Long repair periods can lead customers to prefer replacement over repair.
The federal government primarily supports the commission's initiative to introduce eco-design rules, energy labels, and profitability indicators for smartphones and tablets.
There is nothing wrong with improving equipment reliability and maintainability, the spokesperson said. In fact, the manufacture of household appliances is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions and only part of the raw materials can be recycled when recycled.
Germany wants mobile security updates to last for 7 years
These proposals have been challenged by the manufacturers. The DigitalEurope group (to which Apple, Google and Samsung belong) wants to claim three years of security updates and two years of functional updates.
You also want to limit the spare parts to the screen and battery, rather than the camera, speakers, and other components that are supposed to be more reliable.
In other words, DigitalEurope represents the status quo. While Apple typically provides feature and security updates regularly for five years, many Android vendors only offer three years or less.
Samsung committed to a four-year security fix in 2021. Some of these are specified by Qualcomm's update policy. But it is clear that sometimes the brand itself is not ready for change.
DigitalEurope considers the minimum battery life requirements to be very ambitious. In fact, only a few providers are able to offer models with at least 80% capacity after 1,000 charge cycles.
So the group recommends a transition phase that requires 800 cycles. Refuses to use energy labels as manufacturers strive to achieve the highest possible energy efficiency.
"We've worked hard to make smartphones last longer," Samsung said. Our average first use was around 21 months in 2015, and in 2020 we've been able to increase it to an average of 29 months.