Analysts working for Acision, and using some YouGov research, have revealed that 84% of UK Mobile Broadband consumers have serious issues with service quality. Some 67% complained about slow speeds, 49% were frustrated by coverage problems and 45% have been hit with connectivity woes.


The research results, however, have apparently also unearthed several key areas where Mobile Broadband operators, such as O2 , T-Mobile , Orange , Vodafone and Three (3) , could improve their levels of consumer acceptance.

1. Fairness policies: Consumers, once they understand the need for resource management, have a high acceptance of policies which enable a fair allocation of the available capacity. The research even indicates that consumers are prepared to pay a premium to enable this service if it translates into an improved Quality of Experience.

2. Content adaptation: Consumers are willing to accept and even pay for content optimisation as long as they benefit in those aspects of the service experience which they find most important. Customers are well equipped to decide which kind of trade off they are willing to accept to get the optimal outcome if they are provided with comprehensible information about service constraints.

3. Paid for Value Added Services (VAS): There is a broad need for different types of VAS services with a willingness to pay an additional fee for these. The top three VAS services, each having over 50% consumer support, are roaming bundles, notifications and fair bandwidth allocation. This provides another key area where operators can build a more diverse and long term revenue model.

Acision's vision is essentially that of a blended model, an ‘all you can eat’ style basic Mobile Broadband bundle combined with transaction based premium services that consumers understand and relate to. The firm is of course attempting to plug its own services "as a world leader in mobile data," which mean that its opinions are not impartial.