A lack of connectivity on mobile phones has long been a problem, but this year, it has been exacerbated by the emergence of high-speed Wi-Fi networks, which offer the ability to connect to the internet as fast as 2G, or 4G.
While this means your phone will be able to connect faster than any other device, it also means it can access far more data than you would have expected.
For instance, an average person’s smartphone could consume between 20 and 60GB of data every day.
But according to a study by mobile analytics company NetMarketShare, that data will increase to 60GB per day on a typical smartphone.
It is a problem which is only going to get worse as people use their smartphones more, with many of us moving to tablets or smartphones in order to stream content from the web.
The issue is that it is not just people using their smartphones but also businesses using their phones to connect with customers.
If you have a business using your smartphone for email, social media, and online sales, it can become a bottleneck, according to Gartner analyst John H. Wethers.
He says a large number of businesses rely on mobile devices for their business, and the speed of Wi-fi networks will only exacerbate the problem.
“The mobile Internet has become more and more ubiquitous and will be used to stream the video, images, and text from all the mobile devices,” he said.
“Businesses should expect their Wi-fios to be able provide the bandwidth they need to stream all the data that they need from their mobile devices.”
In addition to the speed issues, there is also the issue of the network.
While mobile Wi-FI networks are often more expensive than their desktop equivalents, the speed differences can be significant.
“For example, in the US, if your average smartphone has 2GB of RAM, you will see up to 30GB of download bandwidth available to you,” Mr Wether’s report explains.
“But in Europe, the average smartphone will have 2.5GB of memory, so a single 10GB download will cost around $1.50.”
Mobile internet speed can also vary based on location.
In Australia, for instance, Wi-Fios can reach speeds of 2G to 20G.
“In some countries, WiFi connections can reach up to 10G speeds, but some countries like the US or Japan are limited to 5G,” Mr H.
Wethers says.
“While the speed is still higher in Australia, the connection speeds are generally not as fast, and many users have reported that their speed is also not as great as in other countries.”
He says there is another factor to consider: the latency.
“Latency is the delay before your phone is able to download and send data, or even connect to other devices,” Mr Gartman’s report states.
“Many people believe that Wi-AF is faster than mobile Wi‑Fi because of this, but the truth is that there is no reliable way to test this.”
The study, which examined speeds on average, mobile, and desktop Wi-Fs in the United States, China, and Australia, also noted the fact that the average Wi-fit speeds were also significantly lower than what is offered by mobile networks.
“It is important to remember that mobile Wi–Fi networks are designed for high-bandwidth use cases, and in some cases can even be faster than desktop Wi–fi,” the report states, citing research by Gartners.
“However, many people are using Wi-ffios in their home or office, and this means that the connection speed is not as good as they would like.”
