Carriers definitely play a role in delays. Carriers have little to no direct control in the development of the updates. However, they're the ones that put the requirements in place of which customizations/settings, extra apps, telemetry, restrictions, testing, etc, that the oems have to develop and implement, and the more they add or require, the longer you can expect the updates to take. If they didn't have additional requirements, it'd just be the unlocked version and there's be little delay (save time for testing/verification). So while they have little control, their extra requirements can still be a significant source of delays imo.As examples of extra value that carriers require oems implement - potentially contributing to delays, look at things like Digital Turbine Ignite and SingleTap that allow bloatware and apps to be installed bypassing Google Play.
Already have an account? Login
Enter your E-mail address. We'll send you an e-mail with instructions to reset your password.
Sorry, we're still checking this file's contents to make sure it's safe to download. Please try again in a few minutes.
Sorry, our virus scanner detected that this file isn't safe to download.