People turning away from fixed line broadband for mobile broadband

According to the results of a recent survey an increasing number of people are turning away from fixed line broadband in favour of mobile broadband

Since the mobile broadband market erupted in terms of popularity and consumers awareness over the past year or so there have been a number of concerns expressed with regards to what the mobile broadband market will do to the fixed line broadband market. Whilst some officials dismissed the idea that the mobile broadband market would have any real effect on fixed line broadband a recent study has shown that many people are turning away from fixed line broadband in favour of the increased flexibility of mobile broadband. The report from the study was entitled DongleTrack, and this was in relation to the dongles that are used with mobile broadband.
The study was carried out by YouGov, and according to the results around one in eight mobile broadband users have chosen mobile broadband over fixed line broadband, and in some cases have actually replaced their fixed line broadband with mobile broadband. The results also showed that out of the consumers that currently use both fixed line and mobile broadband around five percent intend to cut down to just mobile broadband service within the next twelve months.

However, another factor that became evident from the study is that around one quarter of mobile broadband users plan to stop using the service, and one of the main reasons cited was poor connection. One industry official said: ‘Customers find mobile broadband easy to use and install but transmission speeds and to a lesser extend network coverage reduce the initial enjoyment of getting up and running.’ He added: ‘It is in these areas that fixed ISPs have a distinct advantage and need to concentrate their marketing effort to minimise customer loss.’