Users Willing to Pay for Faster Internet Access, Global Study Finds

A global survey of mobile users by Accenture finds that the speed of mobile Internet connection was important to 97 percent of all respondents. That is not too surprising, given the overwhelming prevalence of 2G and 3G network connections globally.

About 78 percent of respondents said there is some room for improvement in mobile Internet access speeds. For ISPs, the equally important finding was that 63 percent of all respondents said they would pay additional monthly fees for mobile Internet service.

But there is a caveat: that willingness to pay is based on the assumption that the new service is an order of magnitude (10 times) faster than their current connection.

For mobile service providers hoping to monetize their Long Term Evolution investments, that is good news. Sort of. It depends on where a service provider is operating.

In mature (developed nations) markets, the willingness to pay extra for 4G is lower (57 percent of all respondents in these markets), except in Italy (71 percent) and Finland (70 percent)

In emerging markets, three-quarters (76 percent) of mobile Internet users would pay more for 4G; customers in Brazil and Russia (83 percent in each country) are willing to pay more.

The more important issue, though, is not what people say they might do, or will do. What matters is what they actually do.

On that score, one might argue that even if consumers in developed markets are not so apparently willing to pay more for 4G, many likely are paying more, if only because of the well-known observation that users of faster networks consume more data.

According to Federal Communications Commission data, users of satellite Internet access services, which arguably face the toughest bandwidth challenges, consume orders of magnitude less data than users of digital subscriber line, cable modem or fiber to home networks.

Currently, a 4G connection generates 19 times more traffic than a non-4G connection, Cisco notes. In part, that is because many 4G connections are used for residential broadband routers and laptops, which have a higher average usage.

But the other issue is simply that when users have access to faster networks, they consume more data. A smart phone on a 4G network is likely to generate 50 percent more traffic than the same model smartphone on a 3G or 3.5G network, Cisco says.

The survey also showed that almost all respondents (96 percent) said the quality of network is important, closely followed by its area of coverage (95 percent).

About 94 percent of respondents said the cost of data is slightly less important than quality, coverage, or connection speed, and even less, 89 percent, cited customer service as being important.    

Accenture’s Mobile Web Watch 2013 study surveyed nearly 31,000 consumers in 26 countries.

Global Mobile Devices and Connections by 2G, 3G and 4G

Although 4G connections represent only 0.9 percent of mobile connections today, they already account for 14 percent of mobile data traffic, according to Cisco.  In 2017, 4G will represent 10 percent of connections, but 45 percent of total traffic, Cisco estimates.

4G will be 10 Percent of Connections and 45 Percent of Traffic in 2017