InnoPath's just released a report covering the customer care landscape for more advanced mobile handsets. The company is a provider of over-the-air services to wireless carriers,

The study, surveying 58 million mobile subscribers and thousands of customer care reps, found that support costs for advanced cell phones and smartphones—such as those running on the Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian, and the iPhone platforms—are expected to balloon by 400 percent compared to the life of standard cell phone. These growing costs are driving the need for mobile operators to find more efficient, cost effective support solutions.

The part of the study where InnoPath states that mobile operators could save billions through over-their-air support isn't so surprising coming from a company that specializes in delivering this capability to carriers. Of more interest is the assertion that the rising popularity of smartphones and data services has led to longer, more complex support calls that are much more expensive for mobile operators to resolve.

These longer calls resulted in global costs of $3 billion directly tied to customer care, according to the report.

"This study, the first focused on mobile customer care, clearly outlines the global impact that increasingly complex smartphones are now having and will continue to have on the wireless industry," said InnoPath VP Dave Ginsburg in a statement. "Our analysis clearly showcased the massive costs - ranging into the billions of dollars - that supporting these new mobile devices has on an operator's bottom line."

These costs, which offset the average revenue per user (ARPU) gains earned for operators because of the far greater data usage of smartphones are no doubt passed onto the enterprises, small businesses and individuals that are the carriers bread and butter. The faster mobile operators can resolve these support issues, the better off we all of us will be.

This is something I think we, as consumers, should take to heart—even though the whole point of the study is to toot InnoPath's own horn and promote its own products.

The widespread adoption of industry standards has enabled the practical delivery of over-the air support, according InnoPath. That's why, in its opinion, over-the-air customer care solutions, such as its ActiveCare product, are practical tools to help carriers, and by extension wireless subscribers, reduce costs.

InnoPath expects the first public roll out of ActiveCare to happen early next year.