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Report: Providers Should Focus on Wi-Fi Latency and QoE

When it comes to Wi-Fi, latency and quality of experience are key. New research from Omdia for managed Wi-Fi provider Airties offers some data points to illustrate.

A poor Wi-Fi experience could lead to a drop of as much as 40 points in a company’s net promoter score, researchers found.

As fiber broadband connectivity increases, supporting higher speeds, the home Wi-Fi network could be the overall network’s Achilles Heel.

More than 40% of households worldwide will have fiber broadband connectivity by 2027, with the percentage reaching higher in “advanced” countries. This has led to a 500% increase in average broadband speeds during the past five years, with an additional 200% increase expected during the next five years.

“As service providers continue their push towards full-fiber networks and gigabit broadband services, the ability to provide high-speed, low-latency and highly consistent Wi-Fi connectivity to every device and every corner of the home becomes a vital part of the end-to-end broadband strategy,” said Michael Philpott, Omdia research director, in a prepared statement.

“Not doing so quickly leads to customer dissatisfaction, which in turn leads to increased operational costs and customer churn.

The report suggests that a lack of home Wi-Fi investment can have several negative impacts, including:

  • Increased customer support calls related to Wi-Fi, which could comprise 60% of all broadband service calls.
  • Increased operational costs due to the complexity of finding Wi-Fi issues. Costs could reach $30 per customer-care call and 10% to 15% could require multiple calls.
  • Additional inefficiency and unnecessary costs. Eighty percent of routers that are returned as faulty are found to have no physical defect or no fault found.
  • Unreported discontent. As much as 50% to 60% of customers with Wi-Fi related issues go unreported, resulting in lower NPS scores and driving customer churn.

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