Acision, which claims to be a world leader in mobile data solutions, has published the results of its latest YouGov based consumer study into UK mobile operator quality. The results found that 77% of users encountered some form of quality of experience issue while using Mobile Broadband (down from 84% in 2010), 54% had suffered slow speeds (down from 67% in 2010) and 42% experienced connection problems (down from 45% in 2010).Perhaps one problem could be that some mobile operators continue to claim top service speeds based on the theoretical capability of connectivity hardware and or their current network technology. This is highly misleading, often more so than fixed line broadband ISP promotions.
Ofcom found earlier this year that the average mobile download speed was just 1.5Mbps (Megabits per second) - rising to 2.1Mbps in areas of "good 3G coverage". Well below the 21Mbps+ capability of existing HSPA / HSPA+ networks and kit claimed by some.
Steven Van Zanen, SVP Marketing at Acision, said:
"In spite of well-publicised network investment and upgrades to LTE/4G, the level of customer satisfaction highlighted by this research illustrates how infrastructure upgrades alone cannot address the quality of experience issues with mobile broadband and its associated services.
In order to maintain a sustainable competitive edge, operators need to evolve from a purely technology-driven approach to a more customer-centric approach and gain control of all aspects of the service."
"In spite of well-publicised network investment and upgrades to LTE/4G, the level of customer satisfaction highlighted by this research illustrates how infrastructure upgrades alone cannot address the quality of experience issues with mobile broadband and its associated services.
In order to maintain a sustainable competitive edge, operators need to evolve from a purely technology-driven approach to a more customer-centric approach and gain control of all aspects of the service."
The research also revealed that only 11% of consumers "disagree" or "strongly disagree" with mobile operators stepping in to optimise video traffic (Traffic Management) during periods of congestion. However it's hard to answer that sort of question accurately until you know exactly what kind of "optimisation" would be involved.
Likewise 21% of respondents are even willing to pay to prevent the video stream from stalling (i.e. buffering) and to improve the overall quality. A number of operators, such as O2 UK, are known to be exploring the possibility of using future superfast 4G (LTE) Mobile Broadband services as a platform for offering boosted speeds to particular services (more problems for the Net Neutrality gang).
Finally 70% of those questioned stated that they would like to be notified in real-time about network congestion, while another 71% wanted to be notified about large download sizes that could impact their data usage (the saying, "there's an app for that", comes to mind). Mobile Broadband remains an incredibly useful service but for most people it's still just a compliment to their fixed line connection and not a replacement.
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Comments: 2
BobPosted: 23 September, 2011 - 11:05 AM
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Mobile is not really suitable for high bandwidth applications it will always suffer from slowness at peaks and will only get worse as more people use it
MarkPosted: 26 September, 2011 - 4:46 PM
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My experiences have a lot to do with it, but I read the thrust of the article the other way around. ADSL speeds (fixed line) average only two to four times faster than 3G depending on which particular surveys you believe.
Clearly 3G isn't going to compete with cable, but the 6Mbps we get downstream walks all over every ADSL connection I've ever had but one which managed 7Mbps. At its slowest - on a really bad day when the A3 is congested and everyone latches to the cell- I only get ADSL speeds.
You could choose to believe that 3G is 3x slower, or that ADSL is 3x faster I suppose. I believe that having fixed line speeds as poor as we have: with 3G (let alone LTE/4G) being able to easily surpass them is a fairly damning indictment of the fixed line network that's supposed to do stuff like streaming and downloading competently and quickly, but which miserably fails me everywhere I move to
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