Australians are the least satisfied mobile customers among nine developed and emerging countries surveyed in a Juniper Networks report.
For its Global Bandwidth Index, Juniper commissioned independent firm Wakefield Research to survey 5500 adults in nine countries and found Australians gave lower customer satisfaction marks than the US, UK, Japan and Germany.
Consumers in all of the above developed countries reported lower connectivity satisfaction levels – a separate measure to customer satisfaction – than people living in emerging nations Brazil, China, India and South Africa, even though networks there tend to be slower and less reliable, the report said.
Australia got a D for connectivity satisfaction, which was measured by aggregating responses to a series of questions about connectivity, including any quality of life improvements or missed professional opportunities resulting from having a mobile connection.
Explaining why consumers in emerging countries would be more satisfied with connectivity than people in developed nations, the report said: “It is likely that the belief in the developing world that connectivity is transforming people’s lives is still much stronger than the feeling that networks should be faster and more reliable.
“Meanwhile, in the developed world, high bandwidth connectivity is so commonplace that people are much more sensitive to interruptions in service.”
In Australia, 73 per cent of customers had one or more connectivity complaint and 89 per cent said they were not completely satisfied with the speed of their current connection.
Australians said they wanted to do more with their mobile devices in the next three to five years, Juniper said. In particular, 42 per cent wanted to receive intelligent push notifications and 40 per cent wanted to manage smart home technologies.
Also, 34 per cent wanted access to more location-based services and the same percentage wanted better access to online education and resources. Juniper found 33 per cent asking for collaborative tools to access healthcare resources and information, and 31 per cent seeking more mobile payment options.
Adam Bender covers telco and enterprise tech issues for Computerworld and is the author of dystopian sci-fi novels We, The Watched and Divided We Fall. Follow him on Twitter: @WatchAdam
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