Successfully integrating Wi-Fi with other mobile broadband services is one of the biggest challenges facing mobile network providers, a new report suggests.
According to marketwatch.com, a recent study from mobile analytics firm Mobidia found that Wi-Fi still accounts for as much as 90 per cent of all mobile data consumption in some “leading” 4G markets, suggesting wireless hotspots are still favoured over 3G and LTE connections by the vast majority of smartphone users.
This led the report’s authors to suggest that operators must now work on making sure the two options available to customers complement each other. It should, for example, be made easier to switch from one connection to another – something which should become a possibility as Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) picks up pace.
The popularity of Wi-Fi is no doubt helped significantly by the fact that most consumers are restricted by their data limits.
In Western Europe, only 9.5 per cent of mobile users are on contracts which allow them to exceed 2GB per month, mobileworldlive.com reports. Figures published by Cisco show the proportion to be 21.6 per cent in the world’s biggest LTE market, North America, while in the Asia-Pacific region, it’s just 2.3 per cent.
The latest findings from Mobidia contrast with the results of an EE survey carried out in 2013. The company claimed that 43 per cent of its 4G customers had reduced their reliance on public Wi-Fi hotspots since gaining access to LTE.
