Telecom Argentina scales device coverage with BrowserStack Automate & App Automate

Telecom Argentina is a leading telecommunications provider offering a wide array of services to millions of end-users, including high-speed internet, smartphone plans, video-on-demand, and home security solutions. As the complexity of their digital ecosystem grew, ensuring a seamless user experience across a massive variety of devices became a critical priority for their QA team.

Before BrowserStack, the QA team maintained a physical, self-contained device laboratory. As their service portfolio expanded to include Video on Demand (VoD) and Smart Home integrations, this physical infrastructure became a significant liability.

• Maintenance nightmares: The team spent valuable engineering hours managing physical connections between automation servers (Appium) and devices. Common issues included unstable USB connections, batteries draining, and devices requiring constant manual reboots.

• Complex device fragmentation: Support was required for a massive matrix of devices, including legacy Android phones, the latest iPhones, and niche platforms like Android TV. Acquiring and maintaining this hardware internally was slow and expensive.

• Geolocation & DRM barriers: Telecom Argentina’s applications are strictly region-locked. Testing from the cloud usually presents a challenge due to IP restrictions. Additionally, testing video playback often failed on standard emulators due to DRM (Digital Rights Management) black screens, requiring real devices with genuine hardware identifiers.

Telecom Argentina transitioned their critical automation suites to BrowserStack, creating a hybrid model where they could offload the heavy lifting of device management to the cloud.

• Plug-and-play integration: The team integrated BrowserStack into their GitLab CI/CD pipelines using Maven. The migration required minimal code changes—mostly adjusting a command line parameter to switch execution from local devices to the BrowserStack cloud.

• Parameterized device matrices: Instead of hard-coding devices, they parameterized their pipelines. This allowed any QA engineer to dynamically select the target brand, model, and OS version (e.g., Samsung Galaxy S23, Android 13) directly from the build configuration.

• Local testing & geolocation: They leveraged BrowserStack’s Local Testing binary to tunnel traffic securely. This allowed the cloud devices to simulate being on the local Argentina network, bypassing geo-restrictions and enabling valid testing of region-specific features.

By adopting BrowserStack, Telecom Argentina achieved a level of stability and speed that was impossible with their internal lab.

1. Reliable parallel execution: Leveraging the infrastructure of Automate & App Automate, the team can now run tests in parallel across multiple devices simultaneously. This drastically reduced build times, allowing them to meet tight release deadlines without compromising on test coverage.

“It is easier to parallel the testing now. We can set several parallel executions to handle the workload… We prioritize ease of use, and BrowserStack is very valuable for that.”

2. Comprehensive debugging artifacts BrowserStack transformed the debugging process by providing rich artifacts for every test run. The team utilizes:

• Video Logs: To visually verify UI glitches and playback issues.

• Network Logs: To inspect API calls and latency issues.

• Device Logs: To trace application crashes and system-level errors. This “traceability” allows developers to identify the root cause of failures instantly, rather than guessing what went wrong on a physical device.

3. Zero-day device readiness The need to procure hardware was eliminated. With Automate & App Automate, the team gained immediate access to the latest iOS and Android devices on launch day. This ensures that Telecom Argentina’s apps are compatible with the newest market devices (e.g., iPhone 15, Pixel 8) the moment their customers upgrade.

4. 100% uptime & stability By moving away from physical cables and local servers, the team eliminated “flaky” infrastructure failures. BrowserStack’s cloud ensures devices are always charged, connected, and ready to run, allowing the QA team to focus on test logic rather than hardware maintenance.

“The managers are happy because we can now test quickly. The team is happy because they don’t have to think about ‘Oh, the device needs a restart.’ It’s really a happy thing for them.”