Consumers Will Pay for Quality-Enhanced Service: Too Bad U.S. Consumers Can't Buy It

More than 60 percent of 2,000 consumers polled n the United Kingdom, France, Germany and United States are now ready and willing to pay for a higher quality of experience. About 74 percent of respondents who are willing to pay for a higher QoE said that they are prepared to spend more money for faster download speeds as well. Oddly enough, U.S. consumers might not be able to buy those sorts of features, though it appears consumers in most other countries will be able to.

The reason is the Federal Communications Commissions "network neutrality" rules, which forbid such services outright on fixed connections, and are for the moment more lenient about mobile features, but which ultimately are likely to be harmonized with the fixed network rules.

The survey was sponsored by Comptel Corporation, a provider of operations support system software. Read more here..

About 61 percent of respondents indicated that they want their communications service providers to offer service and price plans that are based on their individual broadband consumption habits. At the same time, consumers want these plans to be simpler; more than 80 percent of respondents prefer to have just one bill or data plan that covers all of their broadband access needs, across networks and devices.

"Eighty-seven percent of consumers see QoE as the driver that will influence their allegiance to their CSP, and the majority of them would not only move but also pay more money for faster and personalized services," said Ms. Arnhild Schia, senior vice president, global alliances and strategic marketing, Comptel. "This consumer-driven demand for a better mobile broadband experience is a tremendous revenue opportunity for CSPs. Policy and charging control can help them optimise QoE-smoothing data usage more evenly across their networks, while dynamically adapting and simplifying service bundles based on individual customers' wants or needs, and introducing progressive pricing strategies that monetise this consumer demand."

About 66 percent of the consumers surveyed in the U.K., France and U.S. reported accessing the Internet most frequently from smartphones.  An exception was Germany, where laptop dongles were the most popular mobile broadband-enabled device, with 56 percent of consumers utilising them.

About 58 percent of respondents already have two or more broadband connections, and of those, four percent have four or more connections.

Consistency in terms of quality of service, more flexible service and price options and unlimited data download plans are bigger issues in the U.K., France and Germany, respectively, than anywhere else. Almost a third of U.S. respondents said that improvements were needed all round.

Given access to unlimited broadband, regardless of location and cost, more than half of respondents would use the extra bandwidth to watch more online TV, especially in France. In the U.S., respondents reported a preference to staying more connected to family and friends.