The Nokia 8210 mobile phone has become a source of embarrassment for the Finnish manufacturer at WCIT 2002.
When Nokia's chief technical officer, Yjro Neuvo, was confronted with allegations that some of Nokia's handsets carry inherent design faults during a press conference at the event this morning, he repeatedly said that he was unaware of the of the controversy surrounding phones.
However, he was forced to concede that he was aware of the issue in embarrassing circumstances when an observer in the audience produced an example of the faulty handset.
A woman in the audience produced a Nokia 8210, demonstrated the problem with the screen, and commented that her husband was experiencing the same problem leaving the CTO no place to hide from the issue.
"Certainly there are things that can be improved in the creation of these phones," Neuvo said initially. "I know that sometimes there are small problems with all phones, but these things can be resolved by taking them to the local representatives," partially echoing a line response taken by Nokia's local operation.
When asked if he should have been made aware of the problem given it is sufficiently widespread to have given rise to an investigation by the New South Wales Department of Fair Trading, he said he was leaving it up to the Nokia in Australia to address the issue.
"I know nothing about the investigation and the Department of Fair Trading, I am not the man to talk to about these issues," he said suggesting again that the issue needed to be addressed by Australian representatives.
Nokia Australia maintains that occurrence of faults in the phone series under scrutiny is not widespread, but the company refuses to reveal warranty claim and repair statistics held by its care centres to back its claim.
Throughout the handset controversy, Nokia has been battling a formidable barrage of anecdotal evidence and a government-led investigation.
A former employee of the company and members of the mobile phone industry have come forward to support the allegations. Nokia customers have also come forward alleging that in some cases 70 percent of phones in known sample groups have exhibited the LCD display faults.
The Department of Fair Trading's investigations have been carried out under a veil of secrecy. A spokesperson for the department was prepared to reveal that Fair Trading has recently established contact points within Nokia Australia to expedite complaints from the department to the embattled phone manufacturer.
The department also said that it has requested documents from Nokia Australia to assist its investigation of the alleged fault but refuses to outline the nature of those documents.
When pressed Neuvo said that Nokia had a policy of recalling phones found to be faulty and that there had been more than ten recalls of phones in Japan, however he would not confirm whether the company was prepared to recall the 8210 series.
"I cannot tell you if we will recall the phones," he said.
"I may have seen a small article about it, but it was only based in Australia," he said, rejecting claims that similar faults had appeared in phones in Asia and Europe. "You will have to talk about someone else on this issue, I cannot talk about it further."
It's unbelievable that Nokia are vague about faults with the 8210. I install about 10 hands free kits a week for these phones. Just about a third of customer's 8210s have screen faults. About 20% have faulty sockets on the bottom of the phone so that they will not work with a hands free kit at all.