Survey: 87% of U.S. Smartphones Connect to Wi-Fi at Home

Obtaining a good, strong cellular mobile connection inside homes anywhere in the world can be a challenge. Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones may offer a readily available solution, according to the results of a global consumer survey released by mobile industry telco-OTT solutions provider Kineto Wireless.

While mobile coverage inside homes continues to be a challenge for service providers, Kineto found that 89 percent of respondents who said they had “poor-to-no mobile voice coverage at home” also owned Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones.

“Providing high quality indoor voice coverage has been a challenge since the inception of the mobile industry,” Kineto Chief Marketing Office Ken Kolderup commented in a news release. “Fortunately, rapid consumer adoption of Wi-Fi enabled smartphones as well as home Wi-Fi over the last several years is presenting mobile operators a clear path to meet the challenge.

“Enabling subscribers to use their mobile voice and messaging services over existing Wi-Fi networks represents a tremendous opportunity for operators to make significant progress toward fulfilling this unmet need.”

Smartphones connect to wi-fi at home
Other highlights of the Kineto-sponsored survey, which canvassed over 2,500 respondents across major markets in North and South America, Western Europe and Asia, include:

• 12 percent of all respondents classified mobile voice coverage within their home as poor (e.g. dead spots within their home) to non-existent

• Asia ranked the highest in mobile coverage in the home, followed by North America, Western Europe, and then South America

• 25 percent of all respondents indicated they had switched mobile service providers due to a home coverage issue

• In the U.S., 87% of respondents with poor to no mobile voice coverage at home indicated they were smartphone users that regularly connect their phone to a home Wi-Fi network. That same number was 89% in the U.K. and 84% across Asia.

Added MobileSquared Chief Insight Analyst Nick Lane, “It is astonishing that when we’re now talking about 4G wireless broadband speeds competing with fixed-line broadband, voice continues to be the poor relation as indoor coverage continues to be a challenge. For many households mobile continues to be the only conversation that ends with ‘hello? Hello?’”