In the wake of Google finally releasing Android 5.0 for Nexus devices in November, it emerged that Telstra customers weren’t receiving the Over The Air (OTA) updates on their Nexus 4 or Nexus 5’s. Customers who had patiently waited for the update watched the theoretical two week rollout window come and go, with nothing received. Intrepid Nexus fans found that by inserting a SIM card from another carrier into their phone they were able to immediately receive the update. But happily, today this appears to be resolved.
A number of our readers have commented on the original post advising that they are today receiving the update, and readers on social media are reporting that they too are receiving the update.
For their part, it appears that Telstra may have been catching a bit of short shrift here, after all it is the phone manufacturer – in this case, Google – who actually control the rollout of OTA updates. Nevertheless, Telstra did actually supply a comment on the situation advising :
We completed the testing of the latest Lollipop update for Telstra-sourced Nexus 5 handset mid December. We had expected Google to make the update available to our customers soon after that, but unfortunately the process took a little longer than expected.
The good news is that they’ve just confirmed to us that they’re about to release the update over the air.
They’ve also confirmed to us that they will also be releasing the Lollipop update for customers using Nexus 4 phones and non Telstra-sourced Nexus 5 handsets connected to our network. The scheduling of updates for non Telstra-sourced handsets is managed by Google.
We’re avid Nexus fans too and so we understand how frustrating the delay has been and we apologise.
Google for their part has no comment on the Telstra situation.
But the updates are now flowing. Telstra customers are receiving the Android 5.0.1 update which includes bug fixes from the original OTA that first brought this issue to our attention. There’s no guarantee this won’t happen again the next time that Google rolls out an update, but the work around of inserting another carriers SIM card should work next time as well, just something to bear in mind.
Have you received your OTA update on your Nexus device yet?
