Telecoms Tech

Wireless and WiFi network capacity is evolving too slowly to accommodate the surge in enterprise mobility, leading to declining user satisfaction levels, according to a new report.

Mobility services specialist iPass examined the effect of what it calls ‘Mobile Darwinism’, as technology and data consumption evolve faster than business infrastructure and mobile networks can handle.

The report found a 25% decline on 2011 levels of mobile network satisfaction to 63%. Only half of those surveyed were satisfied with their data coverage and just a third were satisfied with the speed of their networks.

Business users operate their devices within a WiFi zone for 61% of their working day, said iPass. With the number of devices typically carried for work also increasing from 2.7 to 3.5, including a laptops, smartphones and tablets.

“Mobile employees are seeing a significant reduction in service levels due to the rapid rise of data consumption,” said Barbara Nelson, chief technology officer at iPass.

“An enterprise’s adaptation strategy should include investing in better management tools to monitor usage, upgrading infrastructure to address the new capacity requirements, licensing outside network services and requiring employees to use inexpensive and secure Wi-Fi connections when possible.”

Interestingly,  the report also shed light on how close we are getting to our devices; the thought of being without a smartphone for even a week solicited an emotional response among nearly 59% mobile employees, said the report. Of those, 40% said they would feel disoriented, 34% would feel distraught, and 10% would feel lonely without their smartphone.