One in six mobile users has little or no coverage in their homes, with Europe subject to the second worst reception globally, new research has found.
A new report from Kineto Wireless said voice was the “poor relation” in the smartphone era, with quality lagging behind that of data speeds and coverage. It said a quarter of respondents had changed mobile service provider because of the lack of coverage at home.
Asia was found to have the best in house coverage, followed by North America, Western Europe, then South America. Nick Lane, chief insight analyst at mobilesquared, said: “It is astonishing that when we’re now talking about 4G wireless broadband speeds competing with fixed-line broadband, voice continues to be the poor relation as indoor coverage continues to be a challenge.”
The vendor said one option to solve coverage would be by migrating onto Wi-Fi while making a call at home. It said up to 90 percent of respondents with poor to no mobile voice coverage at home also had a Wi-Fi network set up.
Ken Kolderup, chief marketing officer for Kineto, said: “Providing high quality indoor voice coverage has been a challenge since the inception of the mobile industry. Fortunately, rapid consumer adoption of Wi-Fi enabled smartphones as well as home Wi-Fi over the last several years is presenting mobile operators a clear path to meet the challenge. Enabling subscribers to use their mobile voice and messaging services over existing Wi-Fi networks represents a tremendous opportunity for operators to make significant progress toward fulfilling this unmet need.”
The online survey was carried out last month with more than 2,500 respondents from North America, South America, Western Europe and Asia.